


I doubt nicknames will be necessary

by rustling_pages



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: (omg they were neighbors), Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Phone sex operator AU, and they were neighbors, smut and feelings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-03-31 19:44:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 69,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13982022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rustling_pages/pseuds/rustling_pages
Summary: 'There was a telephone number. Having it was as singular a privilege as possibly imaginable. As such, the person on the other end of the line – should he pick up – was called nothing less than the 'Untouchable Prince'.Honestly, Damen had no idea how a phone sex line could possibly pay off when the clients were a select few meticulously screened and regularly weeded out by the single operator, but after another night of trying his hardest not to jerk off to the haunting image of his haughty neighbor, he couldn’t care less.'AKA the Phone Sex Operator AU no one asked for





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so this kind of got away from me. 
> 
> Usually when writing 'Captive Prince' stuff, I try to imitate Pacat as good as I can (because her writing style is exquisit), but this is straight up fanfic jargon, so be warned about that. Entirely self-indulgent nonsense that I hope some of you will enjoy as well. :)
> 
> EDIT: AO3 keeps rearranging my tags, so I'll be posting chapter sensitive tags before each one. 
> 
> Tags: Brief Damen/Jokaste, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Damen Is A Sweetie Who Bakes Pies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> EDIT: Okay, since this story has turned into a super complex thing and the beginning is decidedly... not... because it was just supposed to be a fun short thing, I am rewriting the first few chapters. Chapter I is hereby officially up to date, the others will follow when I have time. :)

Damen came home from the gym to find Jord’s moving truck in front of his apartment building and Jord himself in front of it, taking a sip of water in between hauling boxes.

“You have a new neighbor,” he told Damen, and Damen, who was glad to leave behind historical romance in favour of literature a little more classic, quoted, “Ah, Netherfield Park is let at last. How can I help?”

Jord closed his bottle. “You can carry the desk with me, maybe. Orlant fell flat on his face and I don’t want him to have to master the stairs with anything that delicate.”

It truly was a magnificent piece. Fin-de-siècle, perfectly preserved, and with a nice shine to it. Clearly used often, but well maintained. From what Damen could tell, it did not go with the rest of what was left in the truck, which seemed rather more modern.

“Who’s moving in?” he asked, grabbing the desk on his own without much of an issue. He had lifted heavier things just half an hour before.

“He’s called Laurent de Vere,” Jord answered, with a shrug. “Younger than you, I think. A law student. Quiet.”

He assessed Damen’s grip on the desk once more, then grabbed a box instead. “Lots of books.” He grunted softly as he took it up. “You’ll have something to talk about.”

Damen nodded and started carrying the desk up the stairs. A bit ungainly to handle on his own, perhaps, but manageable enough and a welcome additional exertion.

He should probably make a pie, he thought, taking the stairs with ease. The family who had lived opposite of his apartment before had always appreciated them.

And so it came to be that the first time he met Laurent de Vere was when he had single-handedly carried a large fin-the-siècle desk up the stairs, sweating and flushed after his rigorous gym regimen, and thinking about the particularly cheesy historical romance novel he was editing at the moment, and about whether his new neighbor would prefer blueberry over apple.  

Only to be greeted by a figure in impeccable, tight business attire, only slightly rumpled by the move. The dark blue brought exquisite pale skin into stark contrast, as well as sharpened the focus on intense blue eyes over fine features and – this was to be Damen’s downfall – a gorgeous crown of blonde hair.

Well, calling it Damen’s downfall was only correct in the metaphorical sense. In the literal, he dropped the desk.  

“Wonderful.” An appropriately acerbic voice paired with a flat expression. “And here I thought I had hired professionals.”

As Damen scrambled to righten the desk and pick up the drawer that had fallen out at the same time, Laurent de Vere calmly directed the actual movers to where he wanted his boxes of books placed. Jord glared but let Damen deal with it himself.

“I’m not actually with them,” Damen hurried to say as soon as he had reattached the drawer. Thankfully, there was no visible damage to it. “I’m certain the company you picked is very much up to the task. If I caused any permanent damage, I’ll pay for it myself, but please don’t take it out on them.”

A high raise of a golden eyebrow that-… did things to Damen’s stomach. A quiet book nerd indeed.

“I doubt you could afford it,” said Laurent. And then, “And I was not going to. If you are not one of my movers, then why are you mangling my furniture?”

“Oh,” said Damen, “I’m your neighbor. Damianos. Feel free to call me Damen.”

Laurent looked at the outstretched hand as though seriously questioning Damen’s mental health. Damen was very aware of how sweaty he must be, suddenly. Then, as Laurent made no move to take his hand, he thought that this was no excuse for how rude his new neighbor was being.

“I don’t intent to have a very lively relationship with my neighbors. I doubt nicknames will be necessary.”

Damen pulled his hand back, and absent-mindedly rubbed it dry on his sweatpants.

“Right.”

For a moment, they just stood there looking at each other. In Laurent’s gaze, there was little more to be found than barely suppressed distain. Damen wasn’t sure what his own eyes were saying, but it probably contained less ice.

As a matter of fact, he should probably try to keep the heat rising in him from being transformed by the shock of sudden and unexpected attraction. For now, it mostly consisted of embarrassment at his own blunder and the stirrings of genuine indignation at Laurent’s undisguised haughtiness. His new neighbor might be pretty, but Damen had more than enough potential bed partners to focus his advances on someone so unaccommodating. And his clearly wasn’t the kind of attention Laurent welcomed, anyway.

The movers walked past them and around the desk back down the stairs. Jord gave him a long-suffering look.

“Is there anything I could help you with?” Damen finally offered, in a last attempt at the civility Laurent did not seem to deem necessary.

“I would rather you left it to the professionals.”

* * *

It was not the first time Laurent had lived on his own, and it was not the first time he was unpacking his life.

The difference now was that before, he had been able to move with only a few boxes. The bare necessities; clothes, books, childhood memories from a time before Auguste died. Things he did not want around his uncle.

There was more now.

With his job, he had been able to pick out his own furniture. This place was big enough for him to be able to set up Auguste’s desk. His professional clothes were fitted and required careful handling, and there were even some comfortable pants and sweaters for him to wear when no one was watching. In law school he had rediscovered his love for reading and collected books almost obsessively, filling boxes over boxes with them.

Life had accumulated around him; a steady, controlled growth. Slowly, it was becoming his own.

After that clumsy oaf of a well-meaning neighbor had left, the movers had finished bringing Laurent’s things up quickly and they had not lingered after he had told them he would finalize the positioning of the furniture on his own.

Sitting in comfortable silence with his things on the trip here, he had prepared their payment. But when he tried to give the money to the man in charge, Jord, he was gently refused more than the previously agreed upon cost of moving.  

“Look,” Jord said, carefully counted out the money, and then held a wad of bills back out to Laurent. “I tried to tell him it wasn’t necessary, but Damen already gave us a pretty significant tip.”

To make up for his own slip of hand, no doubt.

Damen. _Damianos._ Interfering once more with Laurent’s previously hatched plans. A nuisance Laurent had not foreseen and had no intention of getting any more involved with.

“Do you expect a stranger’s actions to affect my own?” he said and did not even look down at the money still in Jord’s hands. This information changed nothing. “This is yours.”

Apart from their lapse of judgement, these men had done their work professionally. And Laurent may not be able to pay his entire rent on his own, but _this_ was his money. He could do with it as he liked.

And as he did not know what would happen to him before he turned twenty-one, it felt only right to spend it on someone who deserved it.

Jord took the wad of bills back, his seemingly perpetual frown smoothing only slightly.

Laurent handed him a few additional notes. “Please give this to Orlant, with apologies about his nose.”

They were Laurent’s apologies, since Nicaise was decidedly not sorry about having accidentally tripped Orlant while he was actually trying to trip Laurent for not allowing him to ride with the moving truck.

 _‘You can come by next week-end,’_ Laurent had told him, and Nicaise had said, _‘Pff, I don’t want to see your stupid new place anyway,’_ and Orlant had cursed in the background. His nose was fine – or at least no more misshapen than before – but he had been very vocal about how much it hurt.

Jord accepted the money for his colleague, but would not be dissuaded from his earlier topic.   

“I’m just saying. Damen is a good guy. You could have ended up with worse neighbors.”

A strange show of loyalty, even to a friend. Laurent, who would rather have forgotten the entire encounter the second the man had pulled the door across the hallway closed behind him, narrowed his eyes.

“He invited himself to my things and then dropped a desk.”

Jord blew out a breath. A man not easily fazed, he looked only the slightest bit exasperated.

“Well, he didn’t expect- you know. _You_.”

There was nothing lewd about the way he said it, but the meaning was clear. It was also unnecessary. It had been fairly obvious from the way this Damianos had acted and Laurent was used to being looked at like something to be conquered. Truly, a besotted neighbor was the last thing he needed.

“It was my mistake, really,” Jord continued. “I know him well enough. I should have warned him. He’s-… not subtle in his preferences.”

Not subtle in his preferences indeed. He had been aesthetically pleasing, at least. With that obscene white t-shirt sticking to well-sculpted abdominal muscles and a broad back. Bulging arms and strong thighs. A nice complexion. Dark eyes and a dimple in his left cheek.

It was _the last thing Laurent needed_.

“I believe that would be all,” Laurent said, with finality.

Jord nodded, gave Laurent something like a tired salute that Laurent interpreted as ‘Good luck,’ or possibly ‘I am very tired and the day’s work isn’t over’, and left.

Laurent closed the door behind him and turned to face his new apartment.

He took a moment just to stand there, breathing it all in. Once properly set up, it would do for his purposes very well. It was the largest untainted space he had ever occupied.

He had been planning the exact set-up from the first time he had been here.

It was a good space, so he had been one among many applicants. On the day of the interview, he had worn a subtle pair of glasses (fake) and the kind of outfit one might expect from a particularly serious student. He had asked only the necessary questions. When he had given the landlord a single small smile at the end, the man – who was obviously used to far bubblier and far more annoying candidates – had felt the relief and satisfaction of gaining something hard-earned, and Laurent had known with certainty that he would be the one allowed to move in.

The door opened to a living room area, where the movers had placed his couch and Auguste’s desk. A window provided enough light, even before the lamps he planned to set up, and there was no door to separate it from the kitchen to his right. He had equipment. He had never really cooked. The bathroom was crowded, but it had both a bathtub and a shower. He was looking forward to either now. And then there was Laurent’s bedroom, which only he would enter.

It was a good space. It was a simple space.

It would be his.

* * *

Things with his neighbor did not get better after that for Damen.

Out of some lingering sense of guilt for breaking what might very well have been a priceless antique, Damen decided he had to approach Laurent again. At least to assure him he could very well afford to pay for repairs. From what he had judged himself, those would not be necessary, but even if it were only a sum to compensate for potential damage, he’d feel better for giving it.

And because since Laurent had moved in, Damen had stress-baked like never before, he had more than one pie to spare. Selecting anything but his best work to bring with him was out of the question. Damen didn’t even have a preference for sweet things, but even he knew he had done well on this one. Hopefully, Laurent had a sweet tooth. Damen had a feeling appeasement would prove to be… difficult.

He took a deep breath before knocking on his neighbor’s door. Then he took another one. And told himself Laurent probably wasn’t as intimidating as he remembered him to be anyways. Or as beautiful.

Unfortunately, he was wrong on both counts.

It wasn’t too late in the evening, and Damen had heard the door opposite opening and closing only an hour ago. Still, Laurent had either not removed his sharp suit after his work day, or he wore nothing else to relax. It did nothing to make him look any less stunning.

Damen would have expected a snippy comment like, _‘Can I help you?’_ , but all Laurent did was raise one perfect eyebrow and wait for Damen to explain himself.

“I was wondering if you liked pie,” Damen said.

Still not a sound out of him.

“Seeing as I made you one. As an apology. To go with any expense you are owed for your whatever damage I might have caused your desk, of course.”

Given how he currently spent most of his days, it wasn’t very surprising he sounded like some guy out of a historical romance novel. Usually, it didn’t colour his speech that much, though. But Laurent’s entirely unimpressed face and precise enunciation was explanation enough for why it was showing through now.

“There is nothing wrong with my desk,” Laurent finally condescended to say. “This is entirely unnecessary.”

“Oh. Good, then.” A pause; awkward for Damen, obviously irritating for Laurent, who was clearly waiting for him to leave now that that matter was cleared up. “I’d still like to give you the pie, if that’s okay.”

“…Why?”

And Damen huffed out a breath and let go of his carefully maintained composure. Which was probably for the better, since at least it was honest. “Because I made like eight of them and I won’t eat a single one of them and maybe it will make you hate me less.”

Now Laurent was looking at him like he was crazy. As before, it was not a large change in his face, merely another subtle layer to his expression. His words, when he was done choosing them, were slow, as if he were speaking to a particularly stupid person among a generally disappointing populace.

“I have no strong feelings about you in any direction.”

And if Damen was flushing now, it was definitely in anger. Nobody was pretty enough to make up for being that obstinate. “Will you just take the pie?”

He held it out in front of him, so that refusal would have made this entire absurd situation even more impossible. His arm was half-inside Laurent’s apartment now, the tin form all the way in. Laurent hadn’t stepped back, and the crust was far too close to ruining his suit. Damen held himself very still.

Laurent blinked.

“Alright.” Then, belated, and foreign-sounding on his ( _pink, soft-pillowed, damnit_ ) lips, “Thank you.”

He gingerly accepted the pie tin. Making sure not to touch Damen’s hand.

He would probably throw it away, Damen suddenly realized. Undoubtedly the best pie he’d ever made, and it would end up in the garbage.

Damen’s smile, when he managed it, was far from his usual radiance.

“Enjoy.”

The door closed in Damen’s face.   

* * *

Out of all the hardships he had faced, and the many that were undoubtedly still to come, pie had not been on Laurent’s list of expectations.

Yet here he was, staring down a beautifully baked, still warm apple pie where it was sitting on Laurent’s kitchen table.

He should not have accepted it. It was clearly a ploy to assure further contact, which was not something Laurent was looking for.

It was not what he was looking for at all.

He cut a small piece. It fell apart perfectly when he put it on a plate. It was the first time Laurent had needed a plate since moving in.

While he poked it with a fork – also previously unused – he considered all the nefarious things that could be wrong with it, and all the ways he had planned for it.

The most obvious was poison, possibly on Laurent’s uncle’s behalf. An unlikely scenario, as their earlier exchange had seemed rather like a spur of the moment type thing and Laurent did not actually think his uncle would resort to outright killing him until other options to keep him from inheriting had been exhausted.

Nevertheless, Laurent had both his phones in easy reach and charcoal tablets next to his plate, and his first bite was very, very small, followed by a longer pause as he waited for any effect to take.

It was annoying to wait. The pie was excellent.

A date rape drug was an option. In case this was true, Laurent had locked the door as well as barricaded it with a chair. It might not be enough to stop someone as massive and muscly as Damianos, but breaking in would hopefully cause enough of a ruckus for other people in the building to get alarmed.

When after a solid half-hour and a finished piece later, Laurent still felt the same – which was annoyed, but lucid – this theory could also be dismissed.

Which left the duller, more common causes for bringing a neighbor delicious freshly baked pie.  

Clearly, Damianos did not find Laurent physically repulsive. As far as come-ons were concerned, it was certainly one of the most elaborate he had received yet, and while mildly intrusive, at least Laurent had gotten something out of it even if – _when_ – he decided never to open his door to his neighbor again.

Perhaps it actually had been an apology? The desk was undeniably expensive, even for the uneducated eye. Damianos could genuinely be ingratiating himself to make Laurent forgive the damage he had nearly caused. He had offered money in the same interaction, after all.

Well, Damianos seemed simple. The likeliest was a combination of the last two explanations.

Nevertheless, the pie was good enough for Laurent to cut himself a second piece.

His work phone rang to distract him for a bit, but after he had finished the call, the remaining pie were still there, taunting him. His caller had been boring, but easy to handle. Laurent had fantasized about the pie as he’d moaned, but been too good at his job. His customer had finished before Laurent had gotten around to eating more.

As enough time had passed, he could now be certain the pie had not been laced with anything other than cinnamon and cardamom. The only reason he felt vaguely queasy was his uncertainty over how to proceed.

That, and appetite.

The damage was done, anyway. He might as well enjoy something sweet while he overworked his brain.

Damianos had been sweet. Embarrassed. Clearly uncomfortable with Laurent’s cold demeanor. Rightfully not all that happy with Laurent, at the end.

He had been more attractive than Laurent had allowed himself to remember. Perhaps-…

Laurent stood up abruptly and walked out of the kitchen.

In the living room, he once more checked that Auguste’s desk truly was uninjured. As before, it held up against Laurent’s inspection.

Running his fingers through the empty inside of the drawer that had come loose, he wondered whether Auguste had even used it all that often.

It wasn’t technically his brother’s, but out of all the ostentatious furniture their parents had left them, it had been what he had kept in his room. Laurent had countless memories of sitting underneath this desk, engrossed in a book. After school, before Auguste came home.

He had probably been holed up in there when the undiscovered aneurism in Auguste’s brain had ruptured and killed him instantly.

It wasn’t where his uncle had found Laurent to tell him the news. It was not tainted that way.

The desk was stable and beautiful and Laurent was too tall now to be able to fold himself up underneath it. However, he could use it for its original purpose and sit at it to work, the way Auguste sometimes had.

On it lay an open case file. Vannes had told him he would get to fight this one out in court on his own.

Auguste would approve of what Laurent was aiming to do.

Auguste would tear the entire world in two if he knew why Laurent was doing it.

 _I’m trying_ , he thought at his brother, even though he did not believe there was anything left of Auguste to witness the progression of his little brother’s life.

He returned to the kitchen to put the remaining slices into the refrigerator and wash up the pie tin.

* * *

Damen had, of course, made his peace with never seeing his pie tin again. He had enough of them, he reasoned. So what if it had been custom made and a very thoughtful present from his stepmother? As long as he never had to see Laurent’s arrogant sneer again, he was fine with it.

Naturally, Laurent had other plans.

The knock, when it came, was short and decisive, and Damen should have known exactly who to expect on the other side of the door. But because he had indeed made his peace with it and was too caught up with trying another variation of the dough, he did not.

And so he answered the door in a ratty white t-shirt and with flour streaks all over his sweatpants. And face. And hair. He liked to approach baking much as he did everything else: giving everything he had.

Laurent spent a tense half minute looking him up and down with an indecipherable expression. Then his eyes finally came to rest on Damen’s and he said, “Did you even need this back?”

This, of course, was the pie tin. Perfectly cleaned, and not with a dishwasher. Not a speck on it and without having lost its form or shine.

“I did, actually.” Damen finally found his voice, and with it, a genuine smile. It seemed to throw Laurent for a loop, if his fast blinks were anything to go by. “Thanks for bringing it back.”

“Well, keeping it would have been rather rude.”

Yes. Laurent had to truly _dread_ being rude.

“Did you like the pie?”

He expected a half-polite lie, but Laurent tilted up his chin a little, pursed his perfect lips.

“I did. A little too much cardamom for my taste.” He actually had tasted it. “I prefer things simple.”

“I’m making another one right now. Would you care to try it?”

And without looking to see if Laurent followed, Damen walked back to the kitchen. It was a gamble, admittedly, but after a fashion, soft, controlled steps stopped behind him.

He looked delightfully out of place, faux casually leaning against the table while Damen stirred the mixture.

“Do you bake professionally as well?”

As expected, Laurent had a hard time with small talk. Damen marveled at how difficult it would be for an actor to imitate that precise stilted tone. But it was the warmest Damen had experienced him so far, and he would take it.

 _Too forgiving_ , he heard Nikandros say. But there had been no true bad blood between him and Laurent. Perhaps Damen had only caught him on a bad day. Two bad days. Laurent didn’t seem like the kind of person who would do well in situations that required spontaneous reaction.

“No, I run a publishing firm,” he answered and added a last dash of cinnamon. “This is just… stress relief.”

Laurent still wasn’t entirely polite, but at least his eyes seemed calculating rather than cold. Damen wondered what he was thinking about. “Surely, there are other ways,” Laurent said, a little too late, and with an odd tone.

“There are.” It came out huskier than expected. “Try it.”

And with singular daring, Damen held a spoonful of filling to Laurent’s lips.

After a moment, Laurent’s mouth closed around it.

And Damen’s was suddenly very, very dry. He watched the curved metal reemerge as Laurent leaned back a little. The quick tip of tongue darting out to lick the filling off one perfect corner of his lips.

“Adequate,” Laurent said.

Unthinkingly, Damen drew nearer. But before his hand could so much as brush Laurent’s jaw, his wrist was caught in a firm grip.

Laurent’s eyes were steel, suddenly.

“No.”

It was all he said. A single word made of ice and distaste.

Then he abruptly let go of Damen and briskly walked back to the hallway.

And Damen stood there, spoon in one hand, his other still raised for a phantom touch, as his door slammed.

* * *

After this, Damen was at a loss. Clearly, his advances had been unwanted, and he felt he should apologize for them. However, apologizing meant bothering Laurent _again_.

Ultimately, he postponed the decision and instead called Jokaste over for a booty call.

The cards were still out on whether resuming a sexual relationship with her was a good idea or not. Damen had not even told Nikandros about it yet, who would be firmly on the side of ' _What the fuck, Damianos.'_ Nik had not particularly cared for her even when their relationship had also been romantic in nature. He had tried to dissuade Damen from proposing long before it came out that Jokaste was also sleeping with Damen’s brother.

To her credit, she never had denied it. Nor had she made a fuss when Damen told her in no uncertain terms that their relationship was over.

To everyone else’s surprise, it had never affected their extremely fruitful professional rapport.

She probably wasn’t sleeping with Kastor anymore, if his particularly sour mood was anything to go by. But since she and Damen had started hooking up again, the topic had not been approached. He never asked her to stay the night either.

It was a good enough arrangement and very good sex, and it was exactly what Damen needed at the moment. His history with Jokaste was complicated enough that his thoughts probably wouldn’t stray to another while he was inside her, and she was, undoubtedly, more than willing.

Except apparently, she was also more than loud. Because in the middle of a very thorough session of Damen’s face between her legs, there was a knock.

An insistent one. One that kept repeating.

Ever the gentleman, Damen worked her through her third orgasm before answering it. He briefly wiped his face and clutched a sheet around his hips, and then threw open the door, just about ready to murder whoever was interrupting them.

And then faltered when it was Laurent.

Laurent, in a very unfamiliar and entirely unwelcome state of undress. A half-open dress shirt hung to ( _pale, subtly muscled_ ) mid-thigh and his golden hair was as mussed as if he’d been the one tossing in the sheets. Also, from the look on his face it was likely Damen who was about to get murdered.

“Could you tell your companion to please tone it down.”

It was not a question and Damen was far too aroused to be able to cope with this situation. Actually, he found he was quite frankly speechless.

“What? Did you overwork your tongue?”

Damen was saved by Jokaste appearing behind him, who had pulled on one of Damen’s shirts.

“Actually, he has a little more stamina than he got to show before we were interrupted. I would appreciate it if he could get back to it.”

When Laurent’s eyes assessed her body, it was with a very different intention than the usual. His eyes narrowed. He wasn’t appreciating; he was coming to several conclusions.

And Damen was suddenly very aware of the picture she presented. Blonde hair in disarray, fine arrogant features on flawless pale skin, and wearing only a shirt.

Very much the female equivalent of Laurent himself at the moment. Even their eyes were similar; Laurent’s maybe a shade brighter. Laurent only marginally less flushed.

And between them Damen, obviously aroused underneath a sheet he hadn’t even clutched closed properly.

“Uhm.”

He really didn’t have anything to say, but Laurent’s acerbic gaze cut him off anyways.

“I suggest investing in a good gag. I can recommend a vendor, if you’d like.”

Jokaste laughed the kind of silver-tongued laugh that promised maiming. “I’m sure you could. It is practical knowledge you so clearly lack. I wonder, is it superiority or frigidity that keeps you from finding a partner worthy enough to pry your legs apart? Though I suspect the reason for this untimely disturbance lies merely in the regret of having hesitated in locking down this one.”

Laurent’s mouth twitched. It was the first smile Damen had seen on him and it was a study in danger. Perhaps it was better it was directed at Jokaste; in his state it unfortunately did nothing to diminish his arousal.

“If I were to concede this much,” said Laurent, “I would be forced to follow it with the observation that it is a failure we share. He does seem awfully distractible. How long has it been since your… _coupling_ has been anything but tension relief for him?”

All the ways this was a highly uncomfortable topic aside, Laurent was better than her, Damen realized suddenly. Somehow, impossibly, Laurent had the high ground over the one person who hadn’t even been fazed when she’d been accused of having fucked his brother.

She seemed to realize it, too. “At least now it’s fairly obvious why he called me. He must be so frustrated, with you around and not letting him.”

And Damen found his voice again.

“That is enough.” It wasn’t quite steady, but it was decisive. “Laurent, I apologize. For this and-” _‘...for trying to kiss you,’_ he did not say. Laurent’s eyes were on his suddenly, clear blue ice even in the half-dark of the hallway. It was startling, but with as much seriousness as he could summon in this absurd situation, Damen went on, “I apologize. I did not mean to offend. Jokaste, I believe it would be better if you left.”

Incredulously, she turned to him. “You haven’t even come yet.”

Damen closed his eyes and prayed for strength. It was too late for dignity.

“Believe me, I’m aware.”

A single huff of breath from the doorway.

“It’s certainly hard to miss.”

Laurent wasn’t hiding where his eyes were _in the least_. Damen, impossibly, humiliatingly, grew harder. He turned away from the door and fetched Jokaste’s coat and purse, still awkwardly holding on to the rather strained sheet.

This was very much _not_ how the night was supposed to go.   

By the time she had gathered her things, Laurent had disappeared back inside his own apartment.  

* * *

Laurent pressed his door closed behind him gently and leaned against it for a moment. For maximum dramatic effect, he had left only the low lamp in his bedroom burning, but its light did not reach him here. Instead, he stood in moonlight, and wondered at the low beginning of _something_.

It was not quite arousal, but it was, perhaps, its earliest predecessor. A slight tingle throughout his body, difficult to distinguish from the thrill of dressing in a costume and becoming someone else.

He had put on a costume tonight, though he had not portrayed anyone else. The far too large dress shirt – a misdelivered parcel he had kept thinking it might come in handy – had paid off beautifully. Damianos had seemed exactly like the kind of person who would provide his bed partners with his own shirts – both for better access and out of some primal (and utterly barbarian) need to mark his territory – but the accuracy with which Laurent had copied the blonde he had taken to bed that night without even having seen her had been most amusing.

It had gone better than he had reasoned beforehand. Her sudden appearance – just after Laurent had decided to use Damianos to experiment with his own supremely suppressed sexuality – had provided opportunity rather than hindrance. He would have considered her worthy competition had Damianos not thrown her out of his apartment at the first sign of interest from Laurent.  

No, he had been himself entirely, and it had not been unpleasant to _demand_ desire.

Very consciously, he pressed his body back into the solidness of the closed door behind him. Felt the plains of his shoulder blades align with the wood, his hips push forward until the small of his back was also flat against it, and the muscles of his backside in a tense line with the length of his body. The dress shirt was of good quality and felt like a whisper against his skin. As he breathed in, it brushed his nipples in a way he liked. He filed the information away for later.

He should try to touch himself, perhaps. It was marginally more likely to be successful tonight, after all, with the sweetness of triumph pulsing through his veins, and the entirely appealing image of his shockingly naked neighbor still on the forefront of his mind. Damianos. Who had thrown out a perfectly attractive woman for the sake of a _maybe_.

Laurent was more than used to being the recipient of unwanted attention, but even in his most determined hours, he had not been able to stomach the thought of allowing any of these men or women to touch him. Yet there was a certain charm to the genuine and unashamed way Damianos wanted him. Even the unexpected attempt at kissing Laurent had stirred the vague beginnings of a plan rather than revulsion.

An opportunity.

Almost idly, almost as if for an audience, Laurent trailed the tip of his finger over the low thrum of his pulse, then slipped lower to the beginning of his collar bone. Damianos had very large hands. Perhaps he would be clumsy with them. Though given the sheer volume he had elicited from Laurent’s icey female counterpart, he must have been doing something right.

His lips had shone, fuller with use. It had not been hard to think of the reason this might have been the case. And while Laurent was utterly uninterested in women, he had not found Damianos’ obvious enthusiasm appalling. If he was a selfish lover, then clearly only after having earned his right to focus on nothing but his own pleasure.

As a thought experiment, Laurent tried to picture Damianos between his own legs instead, but it was not as easy as he might have hoped. Damianos was not one for having to make himself bigger than he was - there was simply no need to ( _very much not_ ) - but neither had he ever made himself small. To put him into a position of servitude, even only within Laurent’s mind, seemed unrealistic.

No, if anyone would be on his knees, it would be Laurent.

He lifted his finger from his tender skin with finality and pushed down the unwelcome thought.

Touching himself now was no use. It would be the same as ever. Even if he managed to force aside everything else enough to get hard without shame, it would be futile. He would not come tonight.       

He breathed in deep again. The silk of the shirt brushed against his chest, but the moment had disappeared into the intricacies of his mind.

He changed into something less likely to stimulate. He went to bed.

Stubbornly holding on to the last remains of triumph brought forth by the simple, impossible act of for once in his life vaguely desiring _more_ from another person rather than less.   

* * *

The next day, Damen could not bring himself to knock. He couldn’t even bring himself to leave the pie.

With a frustrated huff, he fell back into his bed, acutely aware of not even having brought himself off last night.

The break-off with Jokaste had been even less painful this time around. They had met for lunch at a café a few blocks from their firm – one of the ground rules of any non-professional interaction was to keep it from interfering with office life – and the topic had resolved itself without much discussion. And even though Damen had asked himself quite seriously why he was letting Laurent interfere with his love life anyway, Jokaste had given an answer unprompted.  

“I don’t blame you,” she had said and her smile had been a sharp thing. Had he not desperately wished to known Laurent’s, it would have been alluring enough to change his mind. “If one were to distill every single trait you find attractive in a partner into one person, he would still be five times more your type.”

She was right, so he hadn’t argued. “I hope we can part on good terms,” he had said instead, and she had waved him off as if this part had already been discussed. It had been, he realized.

“I’m curious what it was I got in the middle of,” she’d finally said. “You haven’t fucked him yet, have you?”

If he had, he wouldn’t tell her, but truly, there was no 'middle' to speak of.

“I don’t think he wants me. I think he despises me.”

With an elegant twist of her wrist and a calculating look, she had stirred her ice tea.

“I beg to differ.”

They _had_ parted on good terms.

But now he was horny and alone and not even entirely sure he wanted to pursue Laurent to begin with. Jokaste was usually good at reading people. Along with her ruthless editing skills communicated with astounding diplomacy, it was the trait that made her one of Damen’s most valued employees. But Damen genuinely did not think Laurent could be fully understood during the course of one meeting, and if he was worth the trouble of getting to know remained to be seen.

For now, Damen was on edge and less in a romantic mood than wooing Laurent into his bed would require. Bothering him for anything less than a very complicated relationship seemed like a waste of time was well, so he was not an option for this particular situation. Even if he were amenable and ready to forgive Damen for trying to touch him against his will and then disturbing his rest with inappropriate sex noises, they would hardly fall into bed right away.

Though he could almost picture it. Laurent, pushing him flat onto his back. A swift hand inside his pants.

Laurent would never forgive him. Especially not if Damen were to indulge himself in this.

He pulled back his hand, which had strayed along with his thoughts, and pressed the ball of his fist into his exhausted eyes.

No, if he was to win Laurent, he would need to go about it differently. A long, drawn-out courtship, maybe. Start with knocking on that impenetrable door.

Which, for obvious reasons, he should probably not do fully hard.

It was barely eight, and a week-day. Using another one of his infrequent bed partners to get rid of this tension seemed unfair, and it was bad timing for trolling bars. Particularly if he was in the mood for a man. Which he very much was.

There were dating apps, of course. Damen opened his phone, but before he could listlessly decide to swipe right on someone, he remembered something different.

Something elusive.

There was a telephone number. According to his source – prone to exaggeration as he was – having it was the singularly greatest privilege imaginable. As such, the person on the other end of the line – should he pick up – was called nothing less than the Untouchable Prince.

A single operator, and one who meticulously screened his calls and weeded out those who were not to his liking without hesitation. Honestly, Damen had no idea how a phone sex line could possible pay off with a set-up like this, but perhaps the exorbitant money he charged after the first thirty seconds kept the Prince solvent enough.

It had been Lazar, of course, who’d given him The Number. Who else.

“He hung up after a sentence and then blocked me,” his friend had told him.

“What did you say to him?” Damen had exclaimed, half horrified, half delighted by this drunken tale.

“Honest to Jord, it wasn’t even that explicit. And he does provide phone sex, so it can’t have been the worst pick-up line he’s heard.”

“Pick-up line,” Damen had snickered, already well on his way to drunk himself.

“Anyways, I’m not the first guy he’s blocked. Not a lot of people out there who have this number, and most of them aren’t allowed to call it anymore. Whoever he is, he must be worth it.”

It had been wistful enough for someone as undiscriminating as Lazar, so Damen had made an attempt to appreciate the gesture. “And you want me to have that number?”

“Hey, if anyone can melt the Untouchable Prince, it’s you.”

And so, Damen was in possession of The Number.

He pressed ‘call’ before he could change his mind.

* * *

“Congratulations, you’ve reached me,” he heard on the other side.

It was not a voice one would typically expect from a phone sex operator. Damen had expected something dark and sultry, a voice sweeter than molasses.

Instead, the only thing common about it was the barest hint of a French accent, and even that sounded more like the remnants of a natural lilt, almost eradicated from speech.

The rest of it was entirely unforeseen. Condescending. Sharp and cold. He could almost see the bored expression pressing beautiful full lips into a thin line.  

Would this get his mind off his inappropriate desire for his unattainable neighbor? No.

Would it get him off? Oh yes.

Oh yes.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've got the second chapter almost finished, but some feedback would really help me keep motivated! I wrote the entire thing between 11 pm and 4 am one night and since then, it's been hard to get back into the swing of things.
> 
> And yes, Chapter 2 will contain the promised phone sex. That, I have written, hehe...


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... This is not the final chapter. In fact, I decided to only post half of what I'd intended to be the final chapter, because the second part grew beyond control. In other news, this is now a multi-chapter fic with a bit more plot, because I can't seem to stop writing it. :) Also, minor changes have been made to the first chapter.
> 
> Thank you all for your encouragement! Enjoy! :D
> 
> Tags: Damen Is A Sap, Masturbation, Consent Is Sexy, Fantasy Interrupted By Orgasm

“Congratulations, you’ve reached me,” he heard on the other side.

It was not a voice one would typically expect from a phone sex operator. Damen had expected something dark and sultry, a voice sweeter than molasses.

Instead, the only thing common about it was the barest hint of a French accent, and even that sounded more like the remnants of a natural lilt, almost eradicated from speech.

The rest of it was entirely unforeseen. Condescending. Sharp and cold. He could almost see the bored expression pressing beautiful full lips into a thin line.  

Would this get his mind off his inappropriate desire for his unattainable neighbor? No.

Would it get him off? Oh yes.

Oh yes.  

* * *

“Not very chatty, are you,” the Prince said while Damen gathered himself. At least he hadn’t hung up yet.

“I prefer to use my tongue for better things,” he said.

On the other end of the line, there was quiet for long enough that Damen was very sure he was about to get hung up on. Not that he would blame the guy. It was exactly the kind of bad line that had probably gotten Lazar blocked.

Instead, “Oh really?”

Not quite interest. Amusement, maybe. Damen would take it.

“When was the last time anyone ate you out?”

Too forward. But it was the first thing that came into his mind. And there it stayed, in all its explicit glory. Oh yes, he’d enjoy that.

The Prince seemed to consider it. The answer, when given, was contemplative.

“I can’t think that anyone ever has.”

Not the worst way of setting up a scene. Make it a first time. More responsive. Surprised by every touch, by every last bit of pleasure. He could almost hear the subdued moans.

“Then you’ve been missing out,” said Damen, firmly.

“I’m bored. Get on with it.”

It sounded-… He pressed his eyes closed and tried to not think too obviously of Laurent. Instead, he focused on the task before him.

“What, describe? Am I supposed to do your job for you?”

“You’re here for incentive to get off,” the Prince said with an audible eye-roll. “I’m incentive. You are undoubtedly going to get off. Your fantasy is to shove your tongue up my ass? Fine. The question is, will it actually do anything for me?”

“Okay then,” Damen decided and propped himself up against the headboard. “If we’re going to do this the way I would have you, we won’t start in the middle of it.”

Again, that mild surprise.

“You wish to seduce me?”

“I wish to give you pleasure,” Damen said, simply.

“I’m curious if you could.” It was not a challenge. It sounded as though he meant it. Any remnants of the accent had disappeared.

Damen pressed on, voice soft. “Will you accept my touch? My kiss?”

“Does it matter?” A different tone, now. Almost irritated.

It did matter. It always mattered.

“I would not have you unwilling.”

“You seem to misunderstand,” the voice bit out, “the concept of fantasy. I’m here. I’m prepped. I’m ready for your cock.”

“And I appreciate it,” Damen said, almost managing to be unaffected by the blunt words. “But all of this means nothing if you’d rather be elsewhere.”

“How would you touch me?” Exasperation turned quieter. A lover’s question, almost pleading. ”How would you coax me?”

Damen breathed out. This, he could do.

“Carefully. We would both be dressed. I would tilt your chin up.”

“You’re assuming I would be looking at the floor. Demurely.”

He almost laughed. “Not demurely. Just bored. I doubt you are capable of demure.” An afterthought, “I wouldn’t want you to fake it.”

Silence, for a moment. Then, “Go on.”

“I would run my fingers over your jawline. Just the tips of them caressing your cheeks, your cheekbone. Down the bridge of your nose, once.”

“Touch my lips.” It was an order, as if to hurry things along now that they’d begun.

Damen decided, in this very moment, that this would be the slowest seduction he was capable of.

“I will. Patience.”

“I’m still bored.”

Damen rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t quite keep the fondness out of his voice. “Stop shutting me out. I will not come close to your lips until you want me to. Until my soft caresses become too much to bear. Until your breathing has deepened, your eyelids have grown heavy.”

Damen’s own eyes flickered closed.

“You claim it for yourself, in the end. You turn your mouth to catch my thumb, and I still. Let you press a kiss to it, if you want to. But all you do is let your lips rest there.” The image was vivid enough to have an effect on Damen’s dick, which now pressed quite insistently against the zipper of his jeans. “I run my thumb over your lower lip.” Slower. Rougher. “Feeling how plump it is.”

“Perfect for cocksucking, I’ve heard.”

The obscenity seemed out of place. Damen wondered why the Prince insisted on making this cheap.

“Perfect for a kiss,” he insisted, gently. “Just a hint of pressure, before I draw back again.”

“Don’t tease. Kiss me or don’t.”

And Damen didn’t know why, but he knew suddenly, without a shadow of doubt, that whatever he said next was… significant.

It would be easy to go with the Prince’s demand. He could picture it all too clearly. Taking Laurent’s mouth for all it was worth. Claiming. Dominating. Making him dizzy with the same heady lust that was coursing through Damen’s veins.  

But it was worth more than that.

“It’s your turn to lean in. If you don’t want to, I will do nothing more than hold your hand until dawn.”

A long moment of quiet. Damen couldn’t so much as breathe.

Then, softly, “Kiss me. Kiss me as I’m kissing you.”

And Damen’s eyes fell closed. It should probably be less easy to picture it. To feel it. And he should very much picture someone, anyone else, but he couldn’t help it. There was no one else he’d rather give this, no one else he’d rather share all of himself with. It would be that kind of kiss.

“I could kiss you for hours,” he said, and it sounded as dazed as he felt.

“We don’t have hours. And we’re both still dressed.” There was some urgency behind those pragmatic words now, something different than before.

And Damen had the scene perfectly before them. Just him and Laurent, in a room lit by the light of fire. Torches, maybe, a little away from a large bed with silken sheets. And all the period romance he’d been editing might be taking its toll here, but it didn’t change the appeal the imagined situation had. The clothes he’d get to slowly take off.

“You’re laced so tightly into your clothing.” An observation in the midst of fantasy. A dark suit turned into a severe jacket pressing a hidden white shirt onto heated skin. “My hands go to your wrist. It’s slender in my palms, but fragile is the last thing I’d ever call you. I undo the laces there, freeing the soft skin underneath.”

“My pulse is racing. Kiss me there.”

Damen had to take a calming breath that didn’t calm him at all. The fantasy came too easily. His hand found the barely restrained erection underneath his jeans and gave a mindless squeeze as he whispered, “I can feel your heartbeat against my trembling lips.”

Hitched breathing on the other end of the line, immediately brought under near perfect control. Damen almost wondered why, but these sweet hesitancies had their own appeal.

“Kiss your way up my arm,” the Prince said. “I’ll free the other side.”

Damen undid the button of his pants. He shouldn’t, yet. They had barely begun. But he also pulled the zipper down. His erection was peaking out of the boxers he wore underneath.

“You don’t understand what this is doing to me. Every inch of your glorious skin revealed to my mouth.”

A wry smile on the other side that he could picture all too well. “It’s fairly obvious what it’s doing to you. What it’s doing to me is… surprising.”

And Damen couldn’t help it, he had to touch, he had to do something to alleviate the ache, the sheer _want_ these words brought with them.

“I’m glad. I’m so glad you want this.” He sounded almost mindless with pleasure as his hand dipped beneath his boxers and gripped himself tight.

“The sleeves are open,” the Prince said, a quiet observation urging Damen to go on, to undress further, to make him want this even more.

“Your neck next, then. More laces. My hands are fumbling, but for once, you are patient.”

“I like that I can make you unsteady.”

Damen was stroking himself in earnest now, a long, simple rise and fall of his hand.

“I can’t help it,” he groaned, as unguarded as his words. “I need to kiss your neck. Your sweet, pale neck, tilted up for me.”

It would shine in the light of the torch. Shine until Damen’s lips closed around it, tasting. Simple presses of lips turned open-mouthed. Only his care for Laurent keeping them from becoming sloppy. 

“Will you mark me there?” the Prince asked, and Damen had to grip the base of his dick to keep from coming from the visual alone.

“If you want me to.”

There would be bruises. Dark, violet bruises against exquisite pale skin, hidden underneath laces, underneath a tie, underneath a demeanor that would belie anyone had the privilege of bestowing them upon him.

It was quieter. Like the Prince was actually thinking about it. “I think I do.”

But Damen would know they were there. That Laurent had allowed him this. That he had wanted it.

“Your neck is so sensitive. I almost forget about undoing the laces.”

“Here, I’ll help you. Don’t take your lips off my skin.”

Damen’s hand sped up beside himself, even as in his fantasy, he slowed down further than Laurent might be able to bear.

“I want you,” he groaned, almost mindless with pleasure. Just enough thought left that imagination was a vivid, living thing, full of firelight reflected on marble skin, of a high tender neck tilted back in acquiescing pleasure.

“My shirt is open,” the Prince was saying, and Damen could _see it_. “I guide your hands inside. My nipples are hard. It surprises you.”

“I can’t believe,” panted Damen, “I get to have this.”

He sounded as wrecked as he felt. It was hardly surprising the Prince picked up on it.

“How close are you?”

“Close. I can stop.”

Maybe. Probably. He didn’t quite manage to still his hand on his cock, but he did manage to slow down. Release was imminent, inevitable, a glorious conclusion not far out of reach, but what little of Damen was not entirely given over to ecstasy was keenly aware of how much he did not want this fantasy to end.

“I can stop for you.”

A pause so brief, it barely betrayed a moment of deliberate decision.

“No,” said the Prince. “Push me back onto the sheets. Rise above me. Move against me. Hold my wrists in your hands above my head and kiss me until we both lose our minds.”

And Damen was gone. Bright white shocks of heat arched his back as he came in his hand, as he almost crushed the phone with his other.

* * *

“Adequate.”

It took a moment. A long, long moment in which Damen tried to reassemble his scrambled mind.

“What… did you just say?”

The Prince went on undeterred. “I should tell you the cost of this call is not that much less than repairing my desk would have been.”

A dry jibe that might have been accompanied by the promise of danger out of blue eyes. A different kind of danger, maybe, than the kind he’d directed at Jokaste.

“Laurent?”

“Did you think I would not recognize your voice, Damianos?”

Definite amusement now, on the other end of the phone. Not necessarily malicious, if Damen’s understanding of _anything_ could be trusted at the moment.

Damen was honestly grappling for any kind of words at all. 

“I had no idea-…”

“You were thinking about me anyways.”

Incredibly, unbelievably, not an accusation. Damen could almost see the careless shrug. Where was Laurent right now? Was he lying on his bed? Was he sitting at his desk, one foot up on the chair with him and his chin half resting on his knee? Or was he draped over a couch like a snake in repose, momentarily sated before getting ready to strike again?

“It sounded like you.”

“For obvious reasons.”

“I made you more pie.” It came out sounding entirely like he felt at the moment: hopelessly charmed.

A pause.

“Less cardamom, I presume.”

And Damen was in too deep.

Half of him was floating still, in an impossible fantasy, illicit in its subject and how very much more there should be to this scene. Laurent’s surprising acquiescence to it was-… He had no words for it.

A laugh, maybe, to cover up the impossible fondness he felt in the wake of this remark, its spite that lacked malice. The flutter in his stomach was not post-orgasmic at all.    

“I’m going to hang up the phone now,” he decided. He honestly had no idea what he’d do if he stayed on any longer, but it probably wouldn’t be good for him.

He didn’t follow through on his words though. Not until-…

“Take a shower before you come over.”

Laurent was the one to hang up, leaving Damen with the dial tone.

Slowly, almost reverently, he let the phone sink to his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: Pie and confrontation. I have the chapter finished, so I'll post soon. :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your kudos, bookmarks and most of all, the amazing feedback you've given me! I started this to amuse myself, and I am so insanely happy you are along for the ride! :D I hope this here Confrontation Chapter Of OMG WHAT WILL HAPPEN does not disappoint. :) 
> 
> Additional Tags: Some Lingering EmbarrassmentTM, Damen Is Very Attractive, Laurent Is SHOOK, Consent Is A Big Deal 
> 
> Warnings: Reference to abuse (non-graphic). Also some internalized self-value issues, but I promise you, Laurent is working on it.

Damen was clean, dressed, and an exciting mixture of hopeful and mortified. He was holding pie.

Showers – even utilitarian ones – had the unfortunate tendency to make him think, and as much as he’d like to believe he was about to be greeted with a wry smile that barely lifted the corner of a gorgeous mouth, chances were, he was going to be verbally eviscerated instead.

It was… unclear what Laurent thought of this thing, or why he’d even gone along with it. And he had the unique quality of keeping Damen ever so slightly off-balance, so it might well have been nothing more than material gathered to bring Damen to his knees, in an entirely unsexy way.

But Damen was, at his heart of hearts, a hopeless optimist. And whatever was broken already would not be fixed by cowering. At the very least, he was going to give Laurent the apology he deserved.

Gathering all his long-learned and oft-earned self-confidence into the Dimpled Smile of Charm as Nikandros called it, Damen finally raised his hand to knock.

Only to have the door swing open.

“You do realize this door contains a viewer.”

Laurent casually leaned against the doorframe and watched as Damen slowly and awkwardly let his hand sink.

“Uhm,” said Damen at the height of eloquence, the Dimpled Smile of Charm faltering.

Laurent eventually took pity on him. “I’m assuming this pie is for me.”

“Less cardamom,” Damen finally managed.

How Laurent could possibly contain an eye-roll was astounding, seeing as with this, Damen could now congratulate himself on surpassing any levels of idiocy previously known to man.

But Laurent didn't react at all. He just looked at Damen for so long that it became hard not to squirm.

“Well," he said finally, "bring it inside.”

He stepped aside. The gesture, small and precise as it was, was dizzying. He was being _invited in_. 

In a heroic effort that included reminding himself of why he had baked this pie, Damen stayed where he was. “Can I apologize first?”

“I don’t know, can you?” It was an automatic reply, one that was then followed by a much more perplexed, “What for?” And then, as if tailored, “A very high-pitched bedpartner or calling a phone sex line? Neither of which seems like an offense specifically towards my person.”

Damen tried not to flush even as he straightened his back and forced himself to look Laurent in his eyes.

“For trying to kiss you in my kitchen.”

Silence.

“Why,” said Laurent, evidently baffled, “would you apologize for that?”

“It was clearly unwanted. I shouldn’t have presumed. I’m sorry.”

Laurent stared at him for a long moment. Damen had the distinct feeling he may have just regained some of his footing.

“Come inside,” Laurent repeated, quieter.

This time, Damen did. Turning his back on Laurent still felt like exposing a weak spot to a particularly venomous snake, but he walked past him anyway.

Considering how much the furniture was probably worth, it was a rather subdued place. There was more focus on open spaces than personalized decoration or lived-in clutter. Even the fin-de-siècle desk seemed like little more than an expensive afterthought. On it, at least, there was evidence of use. Stacks of paper, neatly ordered, a pen that seemed made for calligraphy and a whole set of disposable ballpoints, as well as a row of books.

Actually, now that Damen had noticed them, there seemed to be a lot of books throughout the room. Most of the titles revealed a sort of snobbery not unusual to people who prided themselves in being well-read, but they did look like they’d been read far more often than a cursory first time.

“You like to read.”

Laurent had closed the door to the hallway, and was now leaning against that, arms crossed. Damen wondered if he’d thrown the suit on because he was expecting a guest. He didn’t react to Damen’s statement, but instead minimally indicated the space to the left.

“As you might be able to discern, this is the kitchen. Do place the pie on the table.”

Damen did as he was told. It was a very clean kitchen. Cooking books were nowhere to be found. Instead, on the windowsill, a whole collection of Dostoyevsky.

“There is a cake knife in the second drawer from the left.”

Damen shook his head to clear it, suddenly acutely aware of how rude it was to intrude on someone’s personal space and examine every detail.

“Oh. Yeah, sure.”

The utensils, despite maybe never getting used, were well maintained, the drawer meticulously organized. Damen realized Laurent had very likely only hired the movers out of necessity and would have preferred doing everything himself.

He closed the drawer and cut the pie into even pieces. To his surprise, Laurent brought two plates and forks and set them down so that they’d be seated on neighboring sides of the table. Then, he sat down, casual as could be, and watched coolly as Damen loaded both plates with pie.

And Damen, against his previous instincts, relaxed. Trusting Laurent in the setting of his own arena was foolish, maybe. But if after all of this, this man, his neighbor who valued distance more than friendly conduct, invited him inside his home, the least Damen could do is understand it as an offering.

He sat down.

* * *

Laurent made no move to pick up his fork. The pie would undoubtedly be a slice of heaven on a dessert plate, but the mere fact that he had even tried the first one still made him feel on edge. Let alone eaten every last crumb and then allowed this man to feed him filling.

And now Damianos was here, with another pie specifically baked for Laurent. Because that’s the kind of person he apparently was. Underneath the table, their knees almost brushed, yet it wasn’t Laurent who arranged himself in a non-intrusive way.

“So, what did you invite me in for?” Damen said easily. “Need to make sure I didn’t poison the pie?” As if to demonstrate, he shoveled a few mouthfuls in, swallowed, then grinned. “I can assure you, I’d never waste food like that.”

It once more occurred to Laurent that he was quite attractive. Even if he was wearing a loose red hoodie to hide those massive bulging muscles. Concealing his bulk to appear less of a threat.

“Actually, I was attempting to be…” He felt distinctly out of his depth. “… neighborly. Consider it an apology of my own.”

Damen seemed to mull it over. Where Laurent would school his own face into careful blankness, his neighbor was an open book. One who clearly did not see where Laurent was coming from any more than Laurent had earlier.

“For what?”

“Being unneighborly.” Laurent took a bite now, a bit too aware of Damen’s eyes flicking to his mouth.

As expected, it was delicious. Truthfully, Laurent hadn’t minded the seasoning last time either, but this pie was perfection baked in a custom-made tin.

He deliberated for another forkful, then decided he might as well approach the topic at hand. “And for recognizing your voice right away and still allowing you to humiliate yourself.”

The entire time Damen had been sitting in Laurent’s kitchen, he had been trying to take up as little space as possible. It didn’t seem to stem from lack of self-confidence either, it would appear he simply latched on to the fact that Laurent needed him unimposing. An impressive feat, considering the sheer size of him.

This was different. True to form, all it took was one word from Laurent to make this giant animal of a man look _small_.

“Humiliate myself. Is that what I did.”

And Laurent was not used to this. The people he dealt with every day were not the kind to deserve any particular sensitivity. If they could not handle the way Laurent spoke to them, they most certainly deserved showed no mercy in turn. Most of them could handle it. Most of them were as ruthless as he was.

Damen, evidently, was not. 

“No, I-…” Laurent began, then didn’t find the right sentiment to convey that he shouldn’t have belittled him, that he hadn’t even meant it as harshly as it had come out.

Ever since he had first realized Damianos was determined to become a fixture in his life, Laurent had treated the entire thing like an experiment. Even his attire when disturbing Damen and his rather telling bedpartner – an expertly mussed too large dress shirt that had been misdelivered - had been carefully chosen. The interruption itself, as much as it partly stemmed from genuine annoyance, had been nothing less than calculated.

Now Laurent was startled to understand this man likely deserved far better than to be treated like an experiment.

“You were-…” he tried again, but in the epitome of cliché got lost in Damen’s eyes, all brown and earnest and unbearably warm now that Laurent was the one floundering for once.

Laurent could feel his cheeks heat.

“I was what?” Damen beckoned, a hint of a smile revealing that frankly devastating dimple.

“Napkins!” Laurent sprang up, the humiliation all his own now. “I forgot them. Please wait here.”

He couldn’t go far to flee, as the cabinet in which he kept them was just outside the kitchen space, but at least it bought him time to turn his back on Damen for a few short moments and gather himself enough to stop blushing.

Still, he had never felt less prepared to face another human being. Even the kid he was currently helping represent in court was easier to talk to. At least there, Laurent could draw from experience.

He had no template for actually _liking_ somebody.

But when he had returned to the kitchen and set out the napkins – cloth, of course, the same deep blue he favored in clothing – Damen didn’t recommence his teasing.   

“Why do you do it?” he asked instead, face serious and open. “Not with me. In general. You don’t seem to need the money.”

Because it was the only way Laurent could stay in control of a sexual interaction.

“I’m a law student who doesn’t qualify for scholarships due to my familial background while at the same time being too young to inherit,” he finally answered, words carefully chosen. “I do come from money, but I-… I don’t necessarily want to rely on the relatives I have left.”

It was more than he could remember revealing of himself in years.

“Oh.” Damen had sat up straighter, obviously startled. “You’re-… how old are you?”

“Worried you’ve paid for getting off with someone underage?”

This time, he more than allowed the ice to coat every last word.

But Damen only shook his head. “Worried I’ve considered having sex with someone not old enough to consent.”

Laurent’s fork stilled, abandoned in the pie he’d started mindlessly stabbing. It was difficult to breathe, suddenly. 

“My twenty-first birthday is this spring,” he said, after a long pause. It was an offering as much as it was a concession, even as his back threatened to snap under the tension. “And I did,” he tested the word out, “consent.”

It was a terminus he had been using a lot, during this case. It would accompany him throughout his entire career, as it was the predominant reason for his choice of profession.

It still felt foreign, in correlation to himself.

“That’s-…” Damen sunk back down on himself and gave Laurent a heart-wrenchingly relieved smile. “I’m twenty-six.”

Laurent knew this already. He knew rather a lot about Damianos. He was not the sort of man who had scruples about looking someone up on every available resource. To form a more coherent picture than clumsy helpfulness, expanses of brown muscles, and dimples.

And while Laurent himself was more than careful not to leave a single trace of himself on the internet, Damen was unsurprisingly the opposite. It was actually quite boring, how open he was about himself. He never even questioned the acceptance of a friend request made on several platforms, under a fake account and with a generic name: ‘Charls’, a social media abbreviation approved version of ‘Charles’. There was an entire backstory Laurent had come up with, for who this ‘Charls Merchant’ was in relation to Damen, but disappointingly, he was simply added to the list of several hundred acquaintances.

The posts themselves were a mixture of pictures with friends – how one single person could be so popular was unthinkable to someone as reclusive as Laurent – and a wide array of sports, and comments on his friends’ anecdotes, ranging from ‘haha lol’ to surprisingly eloquent feats of compassion.

He was also on more professional platforms, and his company – co-run with his slightly less pleasant looking half-brother – published its fair share of generic novels (historical romance among the more popular genres), but also more than its fair share of gems, some of which Laurent had had in one of the bookshelves in his bedroom long before moving here.

“I would be rather a prodigy,” Laurent idly commented, “if I were attending law school underage.”

The dimple grew and Laurent wanted desperately to stop blushing like a teenager with a crush. Well, like a normal teenager might have.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if you were,” Damen said, “a prodigy,” and then, as if it were related, “Are you enjoying the pie?”

Laurent, as it were, was very unopposed to a change in subject and something else to focus on than the way one of Damen’s dark curls had fallen over one beautifully shaped eyebrow. 

“Yes, it’s,” he tapped his fork against the outer crust as if to test its consistency, “quite good. I like,” Damen was listening intently and suddenly he wished he didn’t have to finish the sentence because it would be far too revealing, “sweet things.”

To distract them both, Laurent took another few bites, his piece slowly dwindling. He wondered if Damen would leave by the end of it. He wondered if he’d have the nerve to take back control over this by that time.

But Damen only ate his own piece of pie – with astoundingly good manners, Laurent noted. He seemed lost in thought.

“Why did you go along with it?” he asked finally, not quite meeting Laurent’s eyes. “If you knew it was me? From what I hear the Prince is known to be discerning.”

And Laurent had absolutely never wanted any insight to what people thought of him on the other side of the line, but he felt compelled to focus on it now. It even drew a bit of a smile on his lips. “The Prince? Is that what they call me?”

Damen huffed another one of these pleasant low laughs.

“You may also have the epithet ‘Untouchable’.”

Which, of course, was very much the point.

Laurent decided he did not need to hear more.

“I have an ear for voices and experience has made me a good judge of character. You may have been crass, and you’re undoubtedly a barbarian brute, but you’ve never been disrespectful.” He should leave it at that.

He did not.

“I was intrigued what your fantasy would be.”

And there, finally, it was. The metaphorical nail in Laurent’s coffin.

Because Damen, suddenly, grew _confident_.

“Oh.” He sounded pleased. “Did I disappoint?”

And Laurent was helpless against it.

“No. No, you were-… _sweet_.” He really very much wished he could have kept his mouth shut before. Instead, he couldn’t even seem to do so now. “A very generous lover.”

The fact that they were having this discussion without ever even have touched made his head spin a little.

Well, they had touched. Once. And Damen had apologized for it.

Damen used words like ‘consent’ like they meant something. Damen’s fantasy had been to make Laurent _want_ to be kissed. Damen would back off immediately if Laurent told him to stop bothering him. Or just to stop. Damen was kind. Damen had arms that could probably carry Laurent’s entire weight while he fucked him against a wall. Damen had very nice lips and a very pleasant dimple. Damen had hands made for worship. Damen baked pie and looked at Laurent like they had something to give to each other.

The decision, truly, had been made a phone call ago. 

“I would like to try something,” said Laurent, “if you’re amenable.”

Damen looked at him openly, his posture relaxed.

“What?”

Laurent’s body, however, had been brought back under his own sharp control. Muscles tense, ready for battle. He wondered if Damen pictured him soft, underneath his armor. He was not.

“I would like to kiss you.”

It was as much a request as it was a challenge.

Damen blinked twice to accommodate this turn of events.

“You did like my fantasy, then.”

On any other man, this kind of response would have meant Laurent not being very kind about showing him the door. But he sounded… like it was entirely unexpected praise. Not because he didn’t think he deserved it, but because he never expected Laurent to give it.

“You misunderstand,” Laurent said, keeping his eyes coolly on Damianos’. Not one flick to his lips. “I would like to kiss you. You, in this scenario, will sit there and let me.”

“Can I kiss you back?”

Laurent thought about it as seriously as Damen had. His jaw felt tense. He was in a very uncomfortable state between anticipation and dread. Maybe he shouldn’t do this.

“Don’t get sloppy. And don’t touch me.”

Damen nodded. Unlike Laurent, he had no qualms about where his eyes fell.

Laurent, of course, had been subject to lewd glances all his life. They no longer unnerved him.

But this was-… softer than that.

“The woman you were sleeping with the other night,” he asked to buy himself a moment, “was not, in fact, a girlfriend of yours?”

“Jokaste?” Damen looked back up. “Uhm, ex-girlfriend. We’re not sleeping together anymore either. As of-… today. This morning. I ended it. Whatever was left of it.”

“Presumptuous.”

Damen shrugged. He looked embarrassed. It was yet another good look on him.

“Honestly, I did not expect you to ever want to talk to me again.”

“I did. I find myself-…” Laurent cut himself off by biting his own lip. Felt the blood welling up underneath tender skin and wondered what it would be like if he allowed Damen to do this to him.

“Stand up,” he ordered. Damen, slowly, complied. It was not submissive, exactly. But he was taking Laurent’s wishes very seriously. He offered a hand.

Laurent remembered, suddenly, the first time he’d seen Damen. Lugging around priceless antiques like their weight was nothing and then dropping them only when he spotted Laurent. He’d been sweaty and enormous and he dealt with Laurent’s unrelenting rudeness far better than he’d dealt with Laurent’s looks. He’d offered his hand then, too. His name as well. And a smile.

And Laurent had known he was danger in a way he was unequipped to deal with and had rejected every friendly advance.

When he gave the movers their well-earned tip, he learned Damen had already given them near the same amount to make up for any potential loss of income due to his clumsiness. It was a generous number. And Laurent’s eyes had strayed to that door opposite his. He’d been doubly glad to have pushed Damen away.

Except he hadn’t stayed away. Unobtrusively, sweetly, he hadn’t stayed away.

Laurent took his hand. It was very warm. Far rougher skin than Laurent’s own. His grip was pleasant and strong and his hand folded around Laurent’s like he was touching something precious.

He let go when Laurent stood opposite him.

Closely.

He smelled good, too. Fresh from the shower he’d taken. Because it was what Laurent had asked him to do.

Laurent had to look up a little, but he knew Damen would bend down to meet him. Making his height an offering, not a threat.  

“I want you to know, however this pans out, you will have a considerate neighbor across the hall.”

“Neighbors,” said Laurent, tonelessly. “Is that what we are.”

Then he kissed him.

Against his lips, Damen drew in a sharp, shocked breath. As if, despite everything, he hadn’t expected Laurent to follow through. Then he held himself very still and let Laurent improve the angle.

And it was not fireworks or the world falling away or any such cliché, but it was _nice_. Damen’s lips were pleasing in shape and feel. They gave easily under Laurent’s slow exploration, parted a little as Laurent tried a single swipe of his tongue.

Kissing back, to Laurent’s astonishment, still meant letting Laurent set the pace entirely. Gentle presses of lips were met with equal care. Slight changes of angle had him adjust to make it better, which it always, unerringly, was. He only reciprocated with tongue when Laurent’s inexperience fell shy of hesitancy. It was nice, too.

He was trembling, Laurent suddenly realized. Damen was trembling and clutching the back of his chair so hard the possibility of it breaking underneath those giant hands was a real one.

He was not sloppy. He did not touch Laurent.

Laurent pulled back and found himself breathing as hard as Damen was.

“If I were to tell you I might never be ready to have sex with you, could you still imagine wanting to spend time with me?”

_Would you take me for who I am?_

“I would like to court you,” Damen said. “With all the grace and courtesy you deserve. And if you’ll ever kiss me again, I’ll be the luckiest man on earth.”

Laurent kissed him again. He took Damen’s hands from the back of the chair and put them on his own hips. They folded around him easily. Became warmth through layers of clothing.  

There was a molten thing inside him, golden and glowing and almost crying in relief.

He could want. He could _want_.

And he could let himself be wanted.

Damen did not see any of the rot that bit of molten light was fighting against. Damen did not even know Laurent had never kissed anyone before.

His kiss was worship anyway. His hands held gently. They did not trap.    

“I might,” Laurent breathed, finally, a long time later, “be able to do more than kiss.” _With you._ “At some point.”

Then he stepped back and Damen dropped his hands. They left broad, warm spots on Laurent’s waist. On the nape of his neck, where Damen had cradled his head. Had laid his palm over Laurent’s hair.

He probably looked a young man who had just been kissed. Damen very much looked like a man who had just given a kiss.  

“Thank you for the pie.”

It was a dismissal, and with a slow nod, Damen accepted it as such. His eyes were very dark. It-… affected Laurent.

When he opened the door, the scene became a mirror of previous encounters. Except this was different, because Damen was far quieter.

Laurent should close the door. He needed space. He needed to think and to reassess and to wonder if everyone felt like everything about them had changed after their first kiss.

“I would like,” Damen finally said, “to take you out. On a lunch break, maybe, if that works with your schedule.”

His voice was soft and reverent, and Laurent was helpless against it.

“Tuesday,” Laurent said. “At noon.”

“We’ll go out for milkshakes. There’s a place near my company. I could show you around there first, if you’d like.”

Laurent might break himself open on this man. There were too many cracks already.

He might break himself or he might break Damianos. It was not a responsibility he had asked for.

“You do like to read.”

Enamored, that was the correct word for that tone. For that look.

“I would like that,” Laurent said, “very much.”

He had never closed a door this gently.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well this turned out a little heavier than intended... BUT ANYWAY.
> 
> Next up: Nikandros does not speak French. Jokaste does. In other news: Laurent is a little shit. 
> 
> I'm not sure when I'll be able to update, as the chapter is only half-done and I have a deadline for two papers by March 31st, but realistically speaking, I'll probably write fanfic instead anyway. :P
> 
> I run a Captive Prince sideblog on tumblr, maybe you want to come yell with me? Seeing as I once tried and failed to make a link work for TWO HOURS, I'll simply WRITE IT HERE YOU CAN COPY IT YES OKAY AND THANK YOU: my-honourable-barbarian.tumblr.com


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo... shorter chapter, but I'm not sure how much writing I can get done in the next few days and I don't want you to have to wait too long for an update. 
> 
> Please excuse any inconsistencies with previous chapters, I am well aware they need a massive overhaul to fit with this slowly emerging plot. I usually don't publish before the story is finished to avoid continuity problems or contradictions, but keep in mind this was supposed to be a fun little PWP. :D

Nikandros had – in recent history – been spared details of his best friend’s love life. It was a trend that really could have continued a little while longer.

But today he’d come into work late due to someone having parked him in, and almost immediately been blindsided with it. Namely, he’d walked into Akielos Publishing and been handed this new intern by a rather flustered looking Erasmus at the front desk.

This new intern who had on skinny jeans, a very oversized cashmere sweater – both baby blue – and wore the dorkiest glasses imaginable. The glasses, he could not be faulted for, but all the rest? They were not the most formal of places, but this kind of hipster look was as unwelcome to Nikandros, at least, as the rest of his aesthetic would be a little too welcome to Damen.

It had to be a blond guy with blue eyes and features like finely cut marble.

“He only speaks French,” Erasmus told him, looking mighty relieved to be spared any further failed communication. “I think he said he was Damianos’ new intern? His name is Charls.”

“I don’t know about any new intern. Who the hell hired him?”

And because Erasmus only shrugged, he dug deeply into what little French he remembered from high school and asked something he though might mean, “Who hired you?”

From the amused purse of lips, he might have asked something different entirely.

Thankfully he understood French better than he spoke it, even though this Charls seemed terribly intent on talking too damn fast.

“I’m supposed to meet Mr. Akielos. Did he not tell you I was coming? I swear he told me to rendezvous with him here.”

Good god, he even had one strand of his damn yellow hair in a braid.

“I’m sure he’ll be here soon,” Nikandros tried to say, before switching back to English and muttering “This is bad all around,” into his beard. Which he may or may not have grown particularly for this purpose.

“Oh, because we only publish English novels?” Erasmus helpfully interjected.

Another excellent point. One that Nikandros would definitely keep in mind when begging Damen to transfer this guy to a better suited branch, far, far away from Damianos himself.

“No, because I never thought I’d say this, but this is a lawsuit waiting to happen.”

Erasmus, bless his naïve soul, actually looked alarmed. “What? Why?”

“Look at him. He couldn’t be more Damen’s type if he tried.” Charls was currently playing with one of the sleeves of his overlong sweater and taking in the small entrance hall. “Well, maybe if he was a little less wide-eyed and a little bitchier.”

“Damianos would never hit on an employee,” Erasmus said with the appropriate conviction. “He’s gently turned down a great deal of potential lovers simply because he felt uncomfortable with technically being in a position of power.”

Speaking from experience, undoubtedly.

“Of course not,” agreed Nikandros, already feeling a massive and permanent headache coming on. “But it’ll be the hardest challenge he’s ever faced. You better pray this is all a mistake, Erasmus, because if not, we’re about to work with a bumbling idiot for a CEO for the next however long his internship is.”

He turned back to Charls, who for the moment, was carefully blank-faced.

“How long is your internship?”

Okay, he was definitely using the wrong word for it, because now this Charls person was biting his lips to keep from laughing out loud. Unfortunately, doing that he looked good enough that Damen would probably pass out the first time he saw him doing that. Blue eyes all sparkly with mirth. Nikandros’ headache grew into a steady pulsing in his temples.

Figuring he couldn’t make it much worse – and feeling more confident with that vocabulary – he decided, “I will bring you to Damianos. Mr. Akielos. He speaks French.” And then, in English again, “And he’s about to have a fucking aneurism anyway, so we might as well get it over with.”

“Thank you so much! I have been looking forward to this for so long! I’m really very excited about this opportunity. This truly is a very impressive enterprise!”

Or something like that.    

* * *

Laurent was unexpectedly having the time of his life. This could not have worked out better if he’d spent more hours planning it. The person grumbling and fumbling with French and showing him to Damen was the man every resource Laurent had consulted called Damen’s best friend. And he was a _delight_ to mess with.

As predicted, using this ridiculous cover to scoop out Damen’s company had provided invaluable insight, even if not in a way he could actually use.

Laurent was, at this point, a bit at a loss as to being able to prove the existence of actual faults within his brute of a neighbor.

From what he could see, people enjoyed working here. They looked relaxed enough – apart from Nikandros, and this, he thought, was probably a permanent state – and they weren’t too keen on formalities or scared to be seen chatting about non-job-related things. The fact that the company was nonetheless successful spoke highly of a good leadership.

They called Damen by his first name and while the sweet kid at the front desk seemed to have a bit of a crush, the high praise and faith in their CEO seemed to be a universal thing. And apparently, Damen would never get involved with someone working underneath him. Even if they couldn’t be – as Nikandros had so eloquently put it – more his type if they tried.

“Jokaste!” Nikandros currently exclaimed, “You speak French, right?”

Well, apparently this rule was a newly instated one.

She looked impeccable, of course. More professionally dressed than most of her co-workers – and in very expensive brands indeed – with her make-up on point but not overstated, and the kind of hairdo one needed a personal attendant to accomplish.

Currently, she was looking Laurent over with obvious amusement held subtly in the corner of her mouth. That she recognized him was not even a question. Laurent raised an expectant eyebrow. In theory, she was as likely to rat him out as she was to play along.

“Who _doesn’t_ speak French?”

Undecided, still. She was too cautious to play all her cards before she had all the information. A clever woman, despite her lack of subtlety the last time they had met.

She had reason, of course, to ruin his fun. He’d quite effectively – and apparently permanently – ruined hers, after all. But she was also exactly the kind of person who enjoyed knowing more than other people.

One thing, at least, was apparent: Nikandros did _not_ like her at all.

“Well, apparently _I_ don’t speak French. Obviously.” He rubbed his temple as if that would make the situation better. “This is Charls, Damen’s new intern. According to him. No one else seems to know anything about it. Can you run a background check on him while I hit Damen over his head with the worst manuscript I’ve read all month? Or just subject him to your usual dubious charm and figure out what game he’s playing?”

She was still looking at him like a cobra ready to strike.

“Oh, I’ve got an idea or two already.”

“Of course you do.” Nikandros rolled his neck. “Keep him occupied, will you?”

And left them alone.

“You should know,” Jokaste coolly said, in impeccable French, “that we take corporate espionage very seriously here.”

“I think we’re both perfectly aware it’s not the reason I’m here.” He still filed away the information. “You clean up nice, when you’re not begging for more so loudly it wakes an entire building.”

She was certainly unaffected by his presence now. Well, now she’d already lost access to the source of her very loud orgasms.

“Except the rest of the building was not bothered,” she observed, eyes glinting. “Whereas you made a point to come over and interrupt.”

Distantly, Laurent noted that this exchange pleased him. It was rare he found someone as sharp as he was.

“And here I’d just thought I’d learned Damianos would never sleep with an employee,” he blinked innocently and gave her an ostentatiously friendly smile, which she returned.

“He would not. I started the company with him.”

“And yet, you’re working underneath him,” said Laurent.

“Underneath him is a good place to be. One, I take it, you don’t know a thing about. Yet.”

Laurent tilted his head in agreement. “Yet.” His smile grew ever so slightly more dangerous. If she weren’t the same type of viper as him, she wouldn’t even have noticed.

“Tell me,” he said, still in French, “what did end your relationship? The real one, not the embarrassingly desperate booty call I walked into.”

“Betrayal,” she said. It didn’t even take her a moment.

“Yours?”

“His brother’s.”

It took a little effort to hide his surprise. That she cared for Damen more than she meant to had been clear from the start. But Laurent had underestimated how far she was willing to go to protect him.

“You said ‘corporate espionage’.” Laurent watched her eyes narrow ever so slightly; clearly, she had not expected him to understand this quickly. Evidently, she had underestimated him as well. She did not know he was well-versed in recognizing betrayal. He knew it intimately, now. “I take it Akielos Publishing found itself with a number of terminated employees after you slept with dear Kastor to find out who was supporting him in the coup.”

Jokaste had gone behind Damen’s back for it and paid the price without hesitation. Laurent wondered if he could ever be that selfless.

“I’m almost impressed.” She smirked. If they weren’t too similar to function comfortably around each other, Laurent might consider finding a friend in her.

“You are impressed,” he said. “I take it you never told Damianos why you did it.”

“Of course not,” she said dismissively. “If you’re here to find flaws in the man you’ve been unexpectantly lusting for, I can save you the trouble. He is too trusting. He’s a good man, so he expects everyone else to be the same. He will never understand that some people don’t have his kind of decency.”

And this entire thing might still be a play from his uncle, Jokaste as bought as Damianos was. She might be lying to throw him off-track. Everyone here might be lying, or Damianos might simply be good enough an actor to keep everyone in the belief he was a more honest man than he truly was.

But Jokaste looked at him like he was competition who had already won. Her words were as clear as they were true, and as true as they were a warning, and they supported everything Laurent had begun to allow himself to see in Damen.

He gave her a single, slow nod.

And then the game recommenced.

“What are you even talking about, Nik? I haven’t hired an intern, I… - Stop hitting me! Is that ‘Knights in White Satin’?”

Laurent had been foolish, letting Damianos get as close as he had. Close enough to touch. To kiss. An intrusion into carefully maintained personal space that he had _welcomed_. Asked for, even.

He almost wished Damen wasn’t here now, that Laurent had the time to properly investigate his enterprise. It hadn’t taken him too much further digging to uncover who had been donating quite generously to it, and when these donations had started, but it would take more than twenty minutes surrounded by seemingly happy employees and a disgruntled best friend to find out why his uncle was giving Akielos Publishing so much of Laurent’s inheritance.

He had been foolish to think even for a moment that he could have something untainted.

And now, pulling back was not an option. Now, he had to know. There was a golden, molten thing inside him, and he didn’t know if he wanted it to stay soft and malleable, or if he wanted to harden it into the golden handle of an instrument of torture.

Damianos had stepped out of the door to what had to be his office, followed by a very unamused-looking Nikandros. His eyebrows were high in confusion, and the same lock of hair that had brushed Laurent’s forehead a few days ago was flopping into eyes. Those deceptively kind eyes that Laurent wanted so badly to believe held only truth.

Laurent had prepared for this. He had set the board in a way that gave him the high ground even on Damen’s territory.  

But seeing that wonderful bafflement, the slow appreciation as Damen spotted him across the room, Laurent was not prepared at all. But neither was Damianos, who stopped in his tracks and seemed lost for words for a long, satisfying span of time.  

“Laurent?”

He kept his heart steady inside his chest, but the golden thing resisted the ice.

“Hello, lover.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: Damen is on a really great date. Laurent is-... conflicted?
> 
> Also, I have no idea if there already is a terrible romance novel called 'Knights in White Satin', but if there isn't, SOMEONE SHOULD WRITE IT.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this chapter has been giving me a hard time during a time when I DON'T HAVE TIME, but here it is.

“What,” said Damen, “are you wearing?” He was unable to let the last remnants of surprise suppress a growing smile proportionate only to the delight that was slowly spreading throughout his entire body.

“Congratulations, you have just uttered the one single sentence I hear the most often.” Laurent’s smile was sharp, his demeanor carefully languid, and his eyes were glinting with-… with what? Damen couldn’t tell if Laurent was amused or if he’d poisoned the office’s coffee supply.

“Damianos. Explain,” Nikandros cut into his observation. Out of all the people immediately involved in this exchange, he was the only one easy to read. Jokaste was easily as opaque as Laurent, but Nikandros looked just about ready to whup Damen over his head with that terrible manuscript again.

“This is Laurent. My neighbor. I’m assuming he’s here for our date,” Damen did not miss Jokaste’s eyebrow slowly inching upwards, and he had a feeling it was less surprise at the reveal as it was a comment on his own obvious happiness at the prospect. 

“Why,” said Nikandros with a growl, “is he pretending to be some French intern named Charls?”

“People talk a lot if they don’t think you speak their language,” Laurent said. His eyes remained solely on Damen. Any hint of a smile was gone.

Before Damen could even try to analyze that, Nikandros pulled him back into his office and spoke in a low voice, “I know you’re not going to listen to me, but I object. Emphatically. With all the power vested in me by long, _long_ years of very patient friendship.”

“I like him,” Damen simply said.

Nikandros ran a hand over his face, the way he only did when he was supremely and entirely done with the world and everything in it. What exactly had Laurent done to him in the few minutes they’d met?

“Of course you do. He basically walked out of your wet dreams.”

“It’s not just his looks.”

Nikandros scoffed.

“He’s a snake. He’ll ruin you worse than Jokaste did.”

“He’s scared.” The words dropped between them with finality and Damianos was startled to realize they were very likely true. _He doesn’t know if he can trust me and he dislikes being at a disadvantage._ Damen should not have told Nikandros this. Laurent didn’t even want Damen to understand this much.

“He’s a better man than he gives himself credit for,” Damen amended.

Nikandros looked like a man in desperate need of a drink, but his next words were the soberest of this entire conversation. “You’re in too deep already.”

There was nothing Damen could say about that.

“Listen, Laurent is half an hour early, but I think I’ll take him out of here before he and Jokaste have any more opportunity to catch up.”  

“Catch up?” That vein at Nik’s temple started pulsing again somewhat fiercely. He looked like his uncle Makedon when he got like this.

“I’ll tell you later,” Damen said quickly, already halfway through the door.

Maybe. Actually, he’d better not.

* * *

Laurent had not spoken much during the short tour Damen had given him of the building. It was hard to tell if any of it met his approval, and Damen didn’t linger to introduce him to any more of his colleagues.

When he’d come back out of the office, Laurent and Jokaste had stood silently side by side like twin gods of judgement, Jokaste with one hand on her hip, Laurent with both arms crossed before his baby blue oversized sweater. On anyone else wearing that outfit, it would have looked like a gesture of childlike self-comfort, but on Laurent, it was deadly.

“I know it doesn’t look like much,” Damen was currently saying as he brought them back to his own office, “but many of our editors work from home.”

Laurent did not follow Damen inside, but Damen did not miss the quick darting around of observant eyes. The glasses had disappeared.

“You mentioned milkshakes,” he said finally, and Damen laid all plans of maybe asking his opinion on one of this morning’s better scripts on ice.

“Oh yes, of course. I’ll just get my wallet.”

Laurent remained standing against the doorframe. It was eerily reminiscent of past conversations, Damen's office or not.

“I’m paying for myself. You may be the type to purchase phone sex, but the rest of me is not so easily bought.”

Damen stopped rooting around his desk.

“I wasn’t trying to-… Would you rather not do this today? You seem upset.”

The ice did not lessen. If anything, it was being fed by something like cold fury. “I said I’d go out with you and I will.”

“It’s not obligatory.”

Laurent breathed out, but it was clearly more in annoyance than anything else.

“I would like a milkshake, Damianos. If you aren’t coming, I’ll find the place myself.”

His posture was so tense Damen almost started aching just observing it.

“Okay. We’ll go.”

Laurent didn’t say any more. Nikandros shot them both dark looks as they passed.

And Damen wanted so desperately to know what he could do to make this easier on Laurent, or even just to make sense of what it was about Damen, that was at the moment so offensive to him, he almost forgot to greet Erasmus.

“Oh, excellent! Charls did find you!”

“What?” said Damen, eloquently.

And just like that, Laurent’s entire demeanor changed. Gone were the tension and the glower and the ice. Instead, his body turned into that of a dancer, easy and graceful and as light as if any moment he might defy gravity.

“Yes, isn’t it wonderful? That grumpy man brought me to Mr. Akielos and now we’re about to go do some intensive studying of ice creams and skimmed milk,” said Laurent, in gushing French.

“That’s-… good?” Erasmus shot Damen a confused look, as if Damen had any more idea about what was going on than he.

Laurent went on, undeterred and with lively exasperation. “And no one told me what a hunky brute he was! Look at the size of that bicep!” 

“What are you doing?” Damen managed, finally. “He doesn’t speak any French, I think.”

When Laurent’s eyes met his, this time there was no trace of malice. He was _having fun_. Well, if that was all it took.

“You, however, apparently do, sweetheart,” said Laurent, with a challenge sparkling in that blue. He’d switched over to an accented Greek. Erasmus’ eyes went very round.

“I speak your language better than you speak mine, _sweetheart_ ,” said Damen, sticking firmly to French.

Something dark and unpleasant flashed through Laurent’s eyes and Damen was sure he’d just ended this date before it even began.

And then, miraculously, Laurent _laughed_.

Genuinely, mirthfully, laughed. It transformed him entirely. More so than any affected French character even.

He was a young man, suddenly, blindingly beautiful, and for one blissful moment, unburdened.

And Damen was on a date with him.

Damen was the luckiest brute in history.

* * *

“Do you take all of your dates here?” was the first thing Laurent said after they’d entered _‘Shake It Till You Make It’_.

“Only the ones with a sweet tooth,” countered Damen.

“Hmm, I wonder how many those have been.”

Thankfully, Laurent had kept his light-heartedness for the two blocks it had taken them to walk here. This, Damen was at least eighty percent certain, was teasing.

“We can go somewhere else, if you’d prefer,” he offered anyway. “I merely thought you might enjoy this place.”

Laurent was still semi-critically inspecting the pastel countertops. He fit in almost comically well here, with his baby blue ensemble. Damen very respectfully kept his eyes off those extremely tight jeans. It was an effort.

“I think I might.” Laurent stepped up to the counter and turned to face Damen with a clear challenge in his eyes. “What are you ordering? Let me guess, vanilla.”

That curl of Laurent’s mouth that hadn’t faded entirely since they’d left Akielos Publishing (and a very confused Erasmus) behind widened just a smidgen and Damen’s mouth dropped open. 

“Was that a dig at my sexual preferences?”

“Of course it was,” said Laurent with a mild eye-roll. “You’re the most vanilla caller I’ve ever had.”

Damen leaned against the counter next to him and pretended to scan through the different options written out in pink chalk with a put-upon pout that probably didn’t look much like anything at all. “I feel obligated to get something else now,” he said, though nothing particularly jumped out at him.

Laurent’s eyes were steady on his when he chanced another look.

“It wasn’t a complaint.”

And there was simply no way Damen would keep his cool throughout this, none at all.

“Oh, okay then,” he said, quite nonsensically. “I do prefer vanilla.”

Laurent’s smile turned devious again. In a flash, he’d turned to the barista and said, “I’ll have double chocolate with mint.” And strolled over to an empty table, leaving Damen to gape after him.

It was quite possible, he realized suddenly, that this man might be his death and Damen was walking to it willingly.

“So that’s one vanilla milkshake and one double chocolate with mint?”, said the barista, who had not listened to enough of it to understand what this exchange had been about.

“Apparently,” said Damen. Laurent had settled down at the table and closed his eyes against the sunlight. It turned his hair into a halo of gold.

He really wasn’t giving Damen much opportunity to get a grip.

“First date?”

Damen swallowed. “Of an infinite amount, if I have anything to say about it. Could you bring them over there?”

Sitting down, he saw Laurent had made a braid out of one strand of his hair and tucked it behind one delicately shaped ear. It made him look _playful_.

“Do you actually have any French roots or are you just very good at subterfuge?” Damen asked over the pounding of his poor heart.

Laurent opened his eyes. Which were an even more wonderful shade of blue in the sunlight.

“I’m excellent at subterfuge,” he confirmed easily, and held Damen’s gaze. After a beat, he did deign to grace Damen’s actual question with an answer. “But my family obviously is from France. I believe my parents emigrated when I was small.”

“You can’t have grown much since then,” said Damen, in an attempt at finding regain some footing.

“I will have you know,” Laurent said evenly, “that I am a perfectly normal sized person. It is simply a matter of scale standing next to you.”

“How old were you when you came here?”

Laurent rolled his eyes in something like exasperation.

“I don’t remember, Damianos.”

As to Damen, his cultural identity was an _integral_ part of who he was, that this was nothing short of incomprehensible. “Did you never ask your parents?”

“There seemed to be other things on my mind before they died. Like learning to walk.”

Oh.

_Of course._

Damen could kick himself.

“I apologize. I did not mean to bring up any bad memories.”

Laurent, however, only leaned back.

“Believe me, the loss of my parents is hardly the most crippling trauma I could have endured.”

There was a moment of quiet, in which Damen tried to make sense of the strange mood that seemed to have come over Laurent. But he couldn’t think of a single thing to say that wouldn’t make it worse.

So instead, he broke his rule about not talking about himself too much during a date.

“My parents were both born here. My grandparents were the ones who came all the way from Greece. Both sets of them, actually. My mother’s side is from the Cyclades, and my father’s from Crete.”

Laurent, thankfully, went with the topic change easily, and recommenced his only mildly biting teasing. “Have you ever actually been to Greece then? If you don’t even speak the language.”

“I speak Greek just fine,” said Damen, in Greek. “Your accent, however, is atrocious.”

Laurent scrunched up his brow as if he couldn’t place the word and Damen quite desperately wanted to kiss that soft crease on his forehead.

“Why do you look at me like that?” Laurent inquired with narrowed eyes, switching their conversation back to English.

“You’re wonderful.”

Laurent blinked once, then looked away.

“Our milkshakes,” he said, indicating the two tall glasses the waiter was setting down on their table.

“I’m serious, Laurent,” Damen insisted, not letting himself be distracted, because this _mattered_. “I’m so glad you’re here with me.”

“Change the subject, Damianos.”

His voice was low and without any viciousness. It left no room for discussion.

So for now, Damen dropped the subject. Watched plump lips wrap around a straw in almost the same soft shade of pink instead and quickly looked away.

_I kissed him. He kissed me. We kissed._

He took a quick gulp of his own milkshake, then. Damen wasn’t one for sugary drinks, but he did like vanilla. And right now, he was parched.

_We kissed, and this is moving too fast for him._

Seeing as Laurent seemed disinclined to come up with a topic of conversation on his own, and Damen very seriously needed something else to think about, Damen said the first thing that came to mind.

“I noticed the desk I dropped is the only antique in your apartment. Is there a reason you have it?”

Laurent’s face, previously occupied with trying to hide that he enjoyed the chocolate, shuttered close. It took a long time until he spoke, voice dangerously soft.

“It was my brother’s.”

And there were alarm bells going off that Damen should probably listen to, but like an idiot, and because Laurent had decided to _answer_ his question, he couldn’t stop himself from asking, “Why do you have-…”

“Auguste died as well.”

It was a sentence that barred all further questions on the subject.

“Oh,” said Damen, feeling vaguely faint now.

One corner of Laurent’s mouth quirked upwards just a little bit. The tiniest bit. “You do have a particular talent for unerringly steering the conversation towards the most awkward subjects possible.”

“Please,” said Damen, with no small measure of desperation, “choose your own.”

Laurent casually leaned back against his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. For a moment, he did nothing but regard Damen.

“Tell me about your company,” he said eventually.

Relieved, Damen did.

* * *

Damianos gave him everything. He answered every question Laurent asked, with an easy smile and obvious pleasure both in his work itself and at Laurent’s apparent interest.

And it was interesting.

Despite Laurent’s earlier assumptions, Damianos displayed an astounding amount of intelligence when speaking of the complicated processes he was involved in every day, and a good hand in picking out promising authors. When trying to steer Damen towards revealing something about his investors, he didn’t so much as blink in alarm, but merely insisted on how lucky he’d been on that front.

The only halfway useful thing Laurent got out of him was the confirmation that his brother Kastor was indeed not to be trusted, and that Damen did so implicitly.

“Kastor is less open perhaps than I when it comes to showing affection, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel it.”

It must be nice to see the world that way.

“Jokaste kept insisting he was resentful of me, but I imagine she merely couldn’t deal with her attraction for him.”

“You should give her more credit than that.” If Damen was surprised to see Laurent take her side, he did not show it. “I doubt she had to try very hard to get him to sleep with her.”

“Oh, I was angry at him. Especially as neither of them apologized. But it’s in the past.”

From there, Laurent let the conversation drift to favorite novels and dreadful first drafts.

And still, he did not have to fake interest. Not even remotely. Damen was a skilled conversationalist and Laurent found astoundingly natural to indulge in idle small-talk that still felt profound. That felt like getting to know each other as people and potential romantic partners. The milkshake was delicious and Damen was courteous and extremely handsome and Laurent was _frustrated_ , because it was far too easy to let himself fall into the exact kind of false comfort his date was likely hired to invoke.

Damen even had a surprisingly dry sense of humor that Laurent found as pleasing as the way his upper arms looked underneath that dress-shirt.

“Tell me,” said Laurent, mostly to distract his mind from wandering to their strength, “have all the myriad people you’ve brought here for milkshakes been blond?”

Damen laughed.

“I may have a preference, but I don’t discriminate based on looks.” Then, considering it, “Though to be fair, all the people I’ve been serious about have been.”

He said it as easily as anything and Laurent watched his lips wrap around the straw of his vanilla milkshake.  

And suddenly, he couldn’t stand it any longer.

“You should get back to work,” he said and Damianos, who had clearly been very aware of the passing of time, made a show out of looking at the clock behind the counter.

“Unfortunately, you’re right.”

_You’re a bad liar._

Damianos took his hand and pressed a quick and entirely enchanting kiss on Laurent’s knuckles. As if they were in one of the horrible romance novels he apparently edited as a stand-in for a pregnant colleague.

He didn’t even do so suddenly. He gave Laurent plenty of time to both recognize his intention to touch him and opportunity to pull away.

And Laurent couldn’t tell himself he only allowed it to keep Damianos interested.

It was utterly foreign, this simple touch of hand to hand, of lips to hand, but instead of making his skin crawl, it made him _tingle_.

Damen’s eyes were very dark and very lovely and Laurent thought, _I kissed you once and it was enough to think I could allow you to touch all the rest of me._

He felt warmth flood his cheeks and broke the moment to take out a few notes for the milkshake. Damen, he noted, did not insist on paying for him. It might have been easier if he had. If he had forced this money on Laurent. If he made it less easy to ignore where at least some of it came from. But all he did was compliment the waiter on how good it had been.

“I had a very good time,” said Damen while he walked him to the closest bus station. Laurent remained silent, and he didn’t insist on a reply.

He was over half an hour late for work, but he waited right there with Laurent, calmly withstanding the growing awkwardness. Laurent couldn’t summon his earlier playfulness, nor anything more vicious than that. He couldn’t look at Damen, because he might forget what this truly was and kiss the man.

It felt like hours before the bus arrived.

“I hope you’ll allow me to see you again,” Damen said, still a respectful distance away.

And Laurent had to face him now and decide how far he was going to allow this thing to go.

Damen looked beautiful with the sunlight filtering through his hair. Gold was kissing the slope of his nose and the soft swell of one cheekbone. He was smiling and it was doing things to Laurent’s heart. His young and foolish heart.

Laurent laid one hand on Damen’s chest and felt the heartbeat underneath his palm accelerate ever so slightly.

 _I need more information_ , he thought, and his fist closed around skin-warmed fabric to pull Damen down. Just far enough for Laurent to follow the path of the sun and press a kiss just underneath that cheekbone.

_I have never done this before either._

Laurent hopped on the bus and let the door close behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: Laurent has a case and Damen is... distracting. 
> 
> To be honest, the next was supposed to be another phone sex chapter, but I decided Damen probably wouldn't call Laurent immediately after a date during which he realized he was physically moving too fast for Laurent. 
> 
> That said, the chapter is written and so is much of the next, so hopefully, there won't be as much waiting between updates. :)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS: Okay guys, this chapter has some serious trigger warnings. We're in Laurent's head during an extremely stressful time in which he basically intentionally triggers himself from several angles. There are references to sexual child abuse by a close relative (both Laurent and other) and memory and reality merging (which doesn't make it super explicit, but probably more so than mostly done in this fandom). Furthermore there are trust issues and self-confidence issues. Read with caution. 
> 
> Before you do I wanted to once more thank you for all your very vocal encouragement. I don't answer reviews because I feel weird about it boosting my comment count, but every single one of them is incredibly important to me and a genuine life-saver during a time in which I seriously need some positive reinforcement. YOU ARE THE BEST! :D

Laurent did not have nightmares.

An overactive subconscious was not an issue for him, because he was conscious of everything at any given moment. Unwanted memories had no chance to catch up to him while he was helpless against them, because he relived them often enough when awake.

And some nights, Laurent did not have nightmares because he did not sleep.

It was his own bed, his alone, and entirely different from what had come before, but on nights like this, he couldn’t even stand to lie down. And because it was particularly bad at the moment, he couldn’t even focus on reading.

Not one of his favorites, not one to allow him escape for a little while, and certainly not the book Damen had gifted him this morning.

When Laurent had opened his door, there’d been a package just outside his apartment.

For a very long moment, he’d simply looked at it, sitting innocently by the side of his door, just out of the way enough that he wouldn’t trip over it.

Maybe he’d just ignore it for now.

He had no intention of interacting with Damen for at least another week. For now, his deceptively sweet neighbor was relegated to a problem he would put on hold until this trial had passed, until he had acquired more information, until he had made a more effective plan of how to deal with a sunny disposition and something slowly melting despite his better knowledge.

He had no time for this now, and no nerves either. A look in the mirror this morning had revealed him to look young and pale and unprepared. An impostor in a severely cut suit who was the only chance for a kid who’d never had any. He didn’t actually have to go out today. He’d done all he could to prepare for the hearing.

The package hadn’t been in the way, but it had been there, taunting Laurent with a more pleasant parallel reality, where he was being courted by someone worth his time. He’d poked at the entire thing with a shoe-covered toe, then picked it up.

A more pleasant reality. In this one, he didn’t have dreams either.

He hadn’t been able to make himself cross the door. He’d brought the package inside with him.

And now it was still sitting there, the pie only saved from going bad because it wasn’t very warm in his apartment, the hardcover book unexamined, the card unread.

Undoubtedly, it was some reiteration of _‘I really liked our date.”_ A finely wrapped lie that meant, _“I wish you’d let your uncle pay for it, but fortunately, you’ll give me a few more chances to put his money to good use.’_

It had been too easy to doubt while Damen had been right there with him, but further investigation had not made the bribe any less true. A fair amount of money, generously donated to Akielos Publishing the day after they’d met. Discovered a kiss too late.  

Laurent had no interest in any of this at the moment.

It was late and he had slept neither well nor much for three nights. Tomorrow would be a rough day in court, where words like ‘consent’ might not mean anything and a kid might not get any justice because he was no longer small enough to garner compassion from a jaded jury.

He’d thought his own history might give him an edge in this case, but now he felt like throwing up.

Because he couldn’t seem to focus on neither his case files nor any other type of literature, he picked up the card. He’d scan over it and throw the whole thing in the trash so that at least he wouldn’t have to keep looking at it.  

 ** _‘Laurent,’_** it read, **_‘this is the novel we were talking about on our date. It’s scheduled to come out in two weeks, but the first printed versions arrived yesterday and I couldn’t wait to give it to you. If you aren’t interested in reading it after all, feel free to ignore it. I hope you’re doing well. Damen.’_**

Laurent set down the card, grabbed his keys and crossed the hallway.

* * *

Damen had only just drifted off to sleep when an insistent knock on the door woke him. Rubbing his eyes and yawning comfortably, he walked to out to the living room just in time for another set of knocks, even louder. His brain made the connection between the pattern and who would be on the other side of the door just as he opened it.

Laurent stood still and tense as one preparing for sudden action. His eyes darted over Damen, undoubtedly taking in his sleepy state of undress and the mess his hair probably was.  He didn’t say a thing.

He seemed rattled by something, uncharacteristically disheveled himself, as if he’d been raking restless fingers through his hair. There were shadows underneath his eyes, more pronounced than the usual fine line of purple shimmering through marble skin.

Damen was just about to find his voice again when Laurent spoke up.

“I require your assistance.”

It was spoken as if unwilling, as if he were severely questioning his own motives.

“Of course. Would you like to come in?”

Damen’s voice was still hoarse with interrupted sleep.

Laurent walked past him wordlessly and sat down at the kitchen table as if he owned it. Damen, who had no complaints about this, was about to join him when Laurent said, “Put on clothes.”

Seeing as Laurent himself was not dressed to go out, Damen took this to mean throwing on a t-shirt and sweatpants might be enough. He also rinsed out his mouth.

The line of Laurent’s back, when Damen came back out of his room, was so taut it hurt to look at, a pillar of ivory underneath something darker than ultramarine, crowned by a golden head held in severe tension.  

“I have a case,” he said, when Damen had at last sat down, their legs underneath the table at a familiar ninety-degree angle. “We go to court tomorrow and I need a sounding board.”

“Oh,” said Damen, still trying to come to grips with this unexpected visit, “alright.” Then, “Are you okay?”

“I’m pulling you out of bed in the middle of the night,” came the words, through gritted teeth. “I am not okay, Damianos.”

Actually, he’d been lucky Damen had been in tonight. He no longer frequented bars and clubs quite as often as he used to, but meeting up with some friends remained a fairly frequent thing.

“And don’t suggest I go to sleep. Actually, don’t talk at all unless you have something worthwhile to say.”

So Damen listened.

And listened.

And felt something inside him dim the further Laurent went into the specifics of sexual child abuse.

“My client is sixteen years old. The abuse began when he was twelve and went on until he came forward last year because he was scared for his little sister. The sister herself neither witnessed the transgressions nor experienced any, and is scared of losing her mother.”

The words were clipped and horrible and Damen wanted nothing more than to take Laurent’s hand to steady him.

“As my client stands alone with his statement and physical evidence is slim, the defense’s argument is simple and will likely garner more favor from the jury. They, after all, have a distraught mother on their side, and an added bonus of my client seeming old enough to lie maliciously. His previous conduct at his school will also be held against him. I am working with one of the best attorneys in family law and even she says chances we’ll win are slim.”

Damen couldn’t help it now, this small, distressed intake of breath. Laurent looked at him, suddenly, eyes piercing, as if to discern if Damen was mocking this. How anyone could was beyond Damen.

“I have worked on this case for months,” Laurent went on eventually. “I’ve prepared as well as I can. I will be the one speaking on this kid’s behalf and it is my aim to prevent that he ever has to spend another minute alone with this woman. If I fail, another minute will be two years minimum. And even if the sister is spared, they have a little cousin.”

“Tell me your strategy.”

Laurent looked at him for a long moment, breathed out, and did.

He went on for some time, sparing neither detail of the case itself nor his plans for the people involved in it.

“Hold on, you can’t say that,” interrupted Damen at some point. Laurent, previously seething, turned his cold blue eyes on Damen.

“Why not? He’s covering for her as well.”

Damen did not relent.

“Yes, undoubtedly, and it might work to anger him like this. But from what you’ve told me of the judge, he won’t let you reduce every person in his courtroom and still let himself be drawn onto your side.”

Laurent’s eyes narrowed even further, that now familiar dangerous glint prevalent in them.

“That is surprisingly cynical, coming from a man who likes to act as though he only sees the best in everyone.”

Damen simply said, “There is a child’s life on the line.”

Laurent kept looking at him for a long moment, then tapped the table once and said, “Go on.”

“You’re cleverer than that,” continued Damen. “I know you can find a way to get him to talk himself into a corner without even once appearing out of line.”

And together, they developed a new strategy. In fact, they sat up for hours going over every single word Laurent would say tomorrow, every possible argument and line of reasoning he’d have to counter, every trap that might get set for him.

If Laurent was surprised at Damianos’ ability to think tactically, he did not show it again.

Laurent’s play, of course, was already good enough that he might have won over the jury without Damen’s help.

But he did contribute, mostly appealing to points of view Laurent had not considered or deemed unlikely. The fact that their minds complemented each other rather well did not get spoken; Damen did not think it needed to.

At one point, Laurent ran a tired hand over his face and said, “If I don’t eat anything soon, my body will shut down,” and disappeared back into his own flat for the pie Damen had left in front of his door. Damen procured some forks for the both of them, and when they sat down again, they both dug in.

It had not been touched before, and Damen did not know if it meant Laurent had simply not gotten around to eating any yet, or if it meant he simply had not gotten around to eating.

“You need to relax,” Damen said eventually, after watching Laurent’s mind keep whirring through mouthful after mouthful of strawberry rhubarb pie.

Laurent, predictably, did not.

“If I could relax, I would be asleep by now and what good would that do anyone?” He tilted his head, contemplative. “Well, I suppose you wouldn’t have to deal with me.”

“You know that I like that you came to me,” said Damen, not deterred so easily. “And I meant relax physically. You’re wound so tight it makes me hurt to look at you.”

“I am not,” said Laurent, clearly articulated and coated in ice, “in the mood for your fumbling attempts at seduction, Damianos.”

Damen, to his own immense relief, didn’t so much as flush. “I wasn’t suggesting you go to bed with me,” he said calmly, “I was suggesting a massage.” Laurent as good as sneered, and Damen amended, “Clothes on, just your shoulders and back. Your neck, maybe.”

The cruel cut of Laurent’s mouth faded. He looked at Damen for a long time, seemingly considering Damen’s proposal.

“I am not sure I can stand to be touched at the moment,” he said eventually, and if it sounded any less like he was still thinking it through, Damen would drop the subject.

“Would you like to try?”

Heart pounding, he held out his hand. Laurent looked at it as though it was a strange, foreign thing. A threatening thing. It made something in Damen hurt.

When he did nothing, not even move his fingers, Laurent breathed out. It wasn’t an easy breath at all. If anything, it seemed like he was barely keeping himself breathing at all.

“It’s okay if you don’t.”

Laurent grabbed his hand.

It was a sudden movement, not unlike a viper striking. Damen almost flinched.

But then Laurent’s hand was in his, draped in delicate angles over his open palm. It was warm and the skin incredible soft and Damen could feel two sets of pulses rushing against each other.  

“What happens now?” Laurent gritted out, as if unwilling to admit he didn’t know it himself. In desperate need of clarification nonetheless.

Damen was all too happy to provide it.

“Now, I hold your hand and we’ll see if it feels good for you. If it does, I’ll begin massaging your palm.”

“Do it,” said Laurent, immediately.

Damen brushed the fingers of his other hand over the back of Laurent’s, over knuckles almost white with how hard he was trying not to clench his fingers shut.

“I will stop at any time.”

“Of course you will.”

It did not sound convinced.

“You can trust me.”

Laurent’s eyes were hard on his.  “Can I?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Damen, slow and sincere.

He did not know what it was Laurent saw in his eyes, but in one single precise movement, he had pulled his hand back and gotten out of his chair. He was breathing hard, the hand Damen had just held between his a white fist at his side.

And then he was standing with his back to Damen, vulnerable in the middle of the room. Baring a single sliver of slender neck to Damen.  

“Well then?” he said, looking straight ahead, “Attend me.”

* * *

It was a particular brand of madness, to expose himself so completely to another person.

Particularly tonight, particularly when his defenses were on a constant onslaught of memories, particularly to one who might well be lying about the reason they had met.

The best-case scenario was that the reason Damen had begun courting him was not the same as the why he still did. Where he had been paid to pretend to care and ended up actually caring. Where he genuinely liked spending time with Laurent.

Laurent was tired. Laurent was reckless.

Laurent was baring his neck to someone well-equipped to choke every last bit of hard-earned freedom out of him.

He did not flinch when he felt Damen step closer. He did not move when Damen raised his hand and carefully laid it down on Laurent’s shoulder. Just held himself tense under the massive span of strong fingers, the soft press of a warm palm.

It was only this, for such a long time Laurent felt ready to snap.

Then Damen’s second hand went to the top of Laurent’s spine.

 _You’re triggering yourself on a night when you cannot afford to do so,_ he thought, but did not move away.

It was different. Even when the hand on his shoulder held a little tighter it was different.

Before he knew what Damianos might be, he’d called them hands made for worship. They weren’t obviously so, now. Not in the way they moved, and pressed, and worked into Laurent’s aching muscles.

Professional. Utilitarian, even.

Nothing deceiving about them, no hidden intention. No demand for the pretense of pleasure from Laurent. He simply massaged Laurent’s back, shifting only when he felt muscles unlock, moving only where he felt pressure was necessary. It felt incredible.

Worship, but for now, without agenda.

Laurent, despite himself, relaxed. Ever so slightly.

“I don’t know why you are so worried,” said Damen, a soothing murmur in the quiet. “Look at the way you care. No one could do this better than you.”

Laurent took a step forward and Damen immediately pulled his hands back.

“That will do,” said Laurent, without turning around. He felt himself begin to shake and pressed down on it so hard it was bound to ruin all of Damen’s work. He could not care about this.

He could not care about some brute who’d broken Auguste’s desk and was most likely in his uncle’s pocket.

Rather than sitting back down at the table, he sank to the floor and closed his eyes. He leaned his head against the cool wall and for the first time in months, allowed himself to feel how tired playing this game with his uncle made him.

Damen sat down next to him, just close enough that Laurent could feel his body heat.

“Ask, Damianos,” he said, without looking at the man.

He would tell him, maybe. Tell him something, at least. See what would happen if he revealed that the man paying him was the exact kind of person Laurent was fighting against tomorrow.

Damen had gotten angry at that woman. Enraged enough that it made him forget about his own naïveté, or at least stop playing at it. Damen would not take this lightly.

“I was thinking that maybe you were on the asexuality scale.”

“No, I-…” Laurent said, eyes snapping open. “I-… I might be, but I don’t think it pertains to you.”

Then, with a huff of laughter that surprised even himself, “Trust you to think of something so utterly benign.”

“I just want to make you happy.”

_You could._

It was the worst possible truth to discover during this night.

Laurent blinked and looked away again. “We aren’t through with the case yet.”

“We’ve talked through enough that I know any idiot in that courtroom would recognize this child to be a victim,” said Damen in all seriousness.

“Any idiot would,” Laurent repeated, faintly, and slid up the wall to get up. He felt vaguely dizzy, again aware how long it had been since he’d gotten more than two hours per night.

Damen followed far more easily. He was looking at Laurent with a crease between his eyebrows and Laurent knew he needed to leave before all the rest of his defenses crumbled.

“If you need to discuss it more,” Damen was saying, “I’ll be happy to stay up with you all night. But if you can, you should get some sleep.”

“I’m keeping you up,” said Laurent, already moving towards the door.

“Don’t worry about me.”

_But I do._

_I do._

And suddenly, there was something Laurent needed to do, more ardently than anything.

Damen did not have much time to be surprised before Laurent had backed him against a wall and his hand in heavy brown locks of hair, the other on a warm cheek. Laurent’s mouth, unrelentingly, madly, pressed against Damen’s.

He needed to please. He needed to _feel_.

_I worry you could break me in half and not even realize what you’ve done until you’re staring at the wreckage._

He felt.

He tore one single, startled sound out of Damen’s throat before sealing his mouth with a tongue seeking its equal. And Damen responded, the unexpectedness of the kiss breaking that carefully maintained barrier of passivity.

 _That you would look at me and know what I am, what I’ve always been, and_ choose me _._

Everything about Laurent ached. He didn’t think he could stand upright a second longer when Damen turned them around in a single, powerful move and Laurent found himself with his back against the wall.

And Laurent, who had no idea what he was doing, what his exhausted body wanted, how it could sing and arch and want without prompting, wrapped his legs around hips and _lost himself_ , past and present merging into something indistinguishable, and horrifying and _good_.

 _He never had me like this_ , said his brain, and, _I want you to have me like this_.

Solid muscle to his front, and a flat, cold surface to his back. Strong broad hands gripping his thighs, hot through the thin sweatpants he was wearing. Holding him up. Phantom hands who’d held him down.

Clothed bodies grinding together on instinct, pleasure sudden and indescribable and frightening.

Laurent, never allowed control, out of control now. Damen, _beautifully_ , taking control.

Damen stopping them.  

“I don’t think we should do this tonight,” he said, and brushed a strand of hair from Laurent’s wild and unfocused eyes. He was effortlessly holding Laurent up, even with only one arm. “I don’t think you want this tonight.”

And Laurent, who at this point had no idea what he did or did not want, only that he could feel that Damen was hardening rapidly against him, said, almost desperately, “But _you do_.”

“I always want you. That doesn’t make me entitled to you.”

And gently set Laurent down.

Brought him to his door himself and kissed his crown.

“I hope you can get some rest before you win this kid his freedom.”

Laurent looked on, almost forlorn, body trembling, as he softly pulling the door closed behind him.

* * *

Laurent did not sleep that night, keeping himself awake with iron will and the knowledge that should he go under, he might just drown entirely.

He went into the courtroom dressed in his finest, expression cold and dark and ready.

He was a lawyer.

He won the case.

He went home and slept dreamlessly for sixteen hours.    

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew. 
> 
> Okay, next chapter should be at least a little bit lighter again, with some smutty bits a.k.a. more phone sex. :)


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all! This author's note is a bit more extensive - feel free to skip.
> 
> Thank you, again, for your comments. I realize the story got a little heavier than I was aiming for, and I feel this requires a few words from me. I got some good feedback on this, but I genuinely hope I am approaching the subject of long-term consequences of abuse with the care and caution it deserves. I have never been affected myself, so please do point out anything at all that might seem respectless. Being in any way offensive is the last thing I want.
> 
> Someone asked me to clarify how Laurent could possibly manage his time. First of all, my apologies. This is not a researched story and I know very little about any of the jobs in question. 
> 
> Laurent only sporadically operates his phone sex line, as is further elaborated in this chapter. It is not a full-time job, but a little money on the side. 
> 
> He is a law student currently doing an internship with a family law attorney. Him leading the case in the courtroom was what I imagined to be an Elle Woods type situation, where a law student may represent a client as long as a barred lawyer is there to approve of their actions. I have no idea if this could happen in real life, but as I haven't even specified which country we're in - nor do I plan to - so it might well be in accordance with THEIR laws... 
> 
> There will also be legal situations described later that need to happen like this for the sake of the story, and while I hope they're not completely unrealistic, I cannot guarantee they apply in any real country. 
> 
> As for Laurent finding the time to go on a date with Damen during a week-day, I'm invoking 'He was not needed that day, as the preparations for the case were done as much as possible at that point and he's never taken a day off before.' Again, please just go with it. If Adam Parrish can - in a published (and EXCELLENT) novel ('The Raven Boys' series) canonically work two or three jobs, maintain his GPA as the best student in a very prestigious high school and still find time to go on adventures with his friends and be there to support them regularly, Laurent can go on one (1) date. 
> 
> Basically, this is a plea to take things in fanfic with a grain of salt. Okay, rant over. :P
> 
> Tags for this chapter: Phone Sex Shenanigans Continue, Laurent Still Has Justified Trust Issues, Tries To Be Detached And Fails Epically, Damen Is Only 99 Percent Perfect, Mild References To Potential Sexual Harrassment In The Workplace

Damen received a message, sometime during the night after the one he’d spent awake with Laurent. It wasn’t a text message, and he realized this was likely because he and Laurent had, despite everything else, not yet exchanged numbers. But fitting to the man it came from, it was also significantly more dramatic than a text message, written in tightly looped inky cursive on cheap white printer paper and pushed under his door.

**_I won the case._ **

**_Don’t speak of it again._ **

**_Thank you._ **

Damen was not entirely certain whether this was about the case or the kiss, but both had been crawling under his skin since he’d left Laurent alone in his flat.

He did not regret putting a stop to it, as Laurent clearly had been as far from rational as he could possibly get, and this was not a state he was at all comfortable in. But the thought of having left him to face the rest of the night alone did not sit well with Damen.

At the time, it had made the most sense. Even after the few hours they’d spent together, Damen had a pretty clear picture of how vulnerable Laurent could stand to be around other people. And though he had clearly and blessedly decided that Damen fell outside the norm, he had figured Laurent would rather have some time on his own to come to terms with having revealed so much of himself.

The fact that he had been quite turned on and rejecting Laurent’s advances again, should he insist upon them, would be as good as impossible, had also played into his reasoning. This, he was ashamed of.

Laurent’s face, young and exhausted and lost, disappearing behind a gently closed door, he was _deeply_ ashamed of.

 _I should have offered him my bed and slept on the couch_ , he thought, running his fingers over the writing. _I should have persisted. I should have calmed him without leaving him alone with his demons._

**_Don’t speak of it again._ **

The kiss? The case? The abandonment?

_All of it._

But he did need to speak to Laurent. Even if only to see if he was alright. If Damen could do anything to help.

Laurent had won the case. The impossible, heart-wrenching case that made Damen want to despair at humanity. He had won, but Damen was not so naïve as to think a child who’d suffered years of abuse would heal completely just because further transgressions had been prevented.

Laurent would be even more aware of this. His job would be done, but he’d keep carrying all the horror he’d experienced through this kid’s eyes. How would _he_ heal?

He remembered how frantic Laurent had been, how utterly gone on whatever conflicting emotions had torn him apart while he’d kissed Damen. Like a man dying of thirst, drinking from a poisoned well. And why? To distract himself from the battle to come? To fortify himself? He had been terrified.

Not asexual. Attracted to Damen. But in need of more control than anything involving physical contact, for now.

There _was_ something Damen could do.

* * *

Laurent had not taken a call in days. He’d tried it a few times since he’d had his hunky neighbor on the line, but had only gone through with it once, and against a growing kernel of distaste.

When he’d first set up the line, it had been about him and him alone. A strategy he’d devised, because resigning himself to a life carefully separated from sexual acts felt like too much of a concession to the power his uncle still held over him. He had to start slow, in the most controlled environment he could create, to find out what he could grow comfortable with.

Telephone sex, it turned out, did not require much. Dirty talk may not have been encouraged in the past, but he was well capable of it. Any shame he felt upon the subject, he could easily deflect onto the pathetic men who called him.

Anyone aggressive, he blocked. Anyone he simply did not feel like talking to, he blocked. He did what he wanted. He played any part he felt like.

He found he enjoyed it. The pretense, the masquerade, the complete removal from anything real. He did not find any arousal in it, but as it was a good source of income and on occasion outright fun, he’d stuck with it.

Damen had been his first attempt at anything more immediate than that. Something real. The first time he’d vaguely entertained the notion of _maybe_.

An experiment, he’d called it.

And then Damen had dialed this number, out of coincidence, and Laurent had assumed at worst he’d found out about Laurent’s business and thought to take whatever pleasure he could not get from Laurent physically in this convoluted way.

And he had been more than Laurent’s stunted libido and carefully guarded heart could ever have desired.

For the first time Laurent had felt the stirrings of something more profound than _maybe_. Arousal that did not sicken him with shame. Imagined himself for once having to chase orgasm at his own hands, unable to go over the edge even on the rare occasions that he tried.

Wanted. Cautiously but genuinely _wanted_.  

“Why in the world would you call this number again, Damianos?” he said now, as he answered the phone. A cursory glance had been enough to identify the caller.

“I don’t have your regular one. Besides, I wanted to propose something.”

The line did not do justice to Damen’s voice, which was nothing special, but pleasant. Warm, like the rest of him, and as easily in control of a conversation as it was ready to relinquish all of it to Laurent.

A kind, honorable barbarian.

“I’ll let you pay the fees until I know what it is you want,” said Laurent, into the phone he had reserved for customer calls.

“That’s fair.”

“I should reiterate they are considerable.”

He stood with one arm focusing most of his weight onto the back of the sofa. He had wondered what Damianos’ next move would be.

“I think you like this,” said he, “Operating this line. I think it feels safe to you.”

Laurent did not confirm or deny either way.

“I don’t know if you normally experience arousal, but I think you like causing it in others. On your terms.” He breathed in deeply, as if to brace himself. “I also think you liked what I talked about when we were on the phone the last time.”

“I did,” admitted Laurent easily. If it threw Damianos, he did not let it show.

“I want to take you out to dinner,” he continued, earnestly. “I want to hear you eviscerate a bad movie that I probably enjoyed and smile at you over a candle-lit table. I want to go on walks with you, I want to take you to an aquarium or a planetarium, I want to break into a laboratory with you and steal all the animals. I want to take you out of the city and lay on the grass for hours, counting stars. I want to bake _with you_ , not just for you, because I think you’d like that.”

Still, Laurent did not speak.

“And if you don’t care for what I’m proposing, I will still want to spend all of these moments with you and more.”

“Get to the point, Damen,” said Laurent calmly.

“I would like to continue the scene.”

Laurent hung up.

* * *

Laurent was not one for pacing as a means to help him think, nor any other type of physical exertion.  The only types of deliberate and repeated movement he engaged in were the different fighting styles he practiced.

Right now, he desperately longed for a sword.

It would be easy to get offended, and it would be even easier to play at being offended. What Damen had just proposed was reason enough for Laurent to end this before he got in any deeper.

But as much as he almost wished he was, he was not offended.

Before, he may even have found the prospect exciting.

Before he’d found out that another payment had been made to and accepted by Akielos Publishing. Before he’d dug deep enough to find that the company had been in deep financial struggles up until the donations had begun.

He’d wanted to believe in the best-case scenario. That even if Damen had been bought before, he would not continue his participation in this scheme. That he’d tell Laurent’s uncle he could no longer go through with this.

Or that he’d tell Laurent, at least. Say, in that earnest way of his, all big brown apologetic eyes: ‘Laurent, I don’t wish to deceive you, but for now, I need the money. Will you play along with me?’

That he was too good a person to keep using Laurent this way.

He’d wanted to believe it so much it disgusted him now. Thankfully, blind trust faded with lack of proximity.

It was an opportunity, now. He had to see it as such.

Despite the hours he’d already spent pondering the issue of his neighbor and how far he could take this, he gave himself another thirty minutes of thinking it through. Then he transferred Damianos’ number to his private phone and called him.

Damen did not pick up.

Laurent corrected his already tense posture into something sure to leave a strain. Vaguely remembered how good Damen’s hands had felt unknotting his back. That even through the horror of that night, he’d given Laurent exactly what he’d needed and not demanded a thing more. Stopped what might have broken Laurent entirely.

Intrusive thoughts, to be dealt with later. Laurent shoved them aside with force and went back to the task on hand.

He had, of course, considered this might happen. There were over twenty-one scenarios for how further communication might occur now, and Damen being the one not picking up again had been factored into six of them.

He had planned for this. It was no reason to get anxious. Damianos was not one to get easily affronted. The reason he hadn’t answered his phone was very likely that he didn’t know Laurent’s private number. And was moping.

So Laurent used his professional line.

It felt more illicit, somehow, to place a call with it rather than accepting one.

This time, Damen answered. In just about the amount of time it would have taken him to check the caller ID and find the button with his giant fingers.

“Laurent?”

“Who else,” Laurent said, and immediately tried to make himself sound less defensive. “If you had accepted the earlier call, this would have been far less expensive for you. Though this may be false. I don’t know if this is charging you anything.”

“That was you?”

“You aren’t actually this dumb, Damianos.” _You have a strategic mind. You’re opportunistic, even though you don’t think of yourself this way. You feel true, because you don’t consider yourself a bad person. Maybe you compartmentalize, like I do._ “Did I interrupt your baking? A man can only eat so much pie and keep the slender figure you so prefer.”

“I thought you’d never speak to me again,” said Damianos, with obvious relief.

_And cost you the additional money my uncle promised you if you managed to pry apart my legs?_

“What would you have done had I not?” asked Laurent, carefully draping himself across the sofa.

“I would have called Nikandros to stop me from doing something stupid. Like drunkenly banging on your door at three in the morning with a very inadequate apology.”

“It’s a good thing I did want to speak to you again, then. I vastly dislike being woken before I wish to be.”

Damen laughed. It was, as ever, a far too pleasant sound.

“Noted.”

“I believe you were in the middle of undressing me,” said Laurent.

There was an unmistakable sound of choking on the other side of the phone.

“You… want to do this?”

“Of course I do, it was an excellent idea.” Laurent settled more comfortably into the sofa. It was a relief, actually, to return to something he could control more easily than his own heart. “Where exactly are we, in your fantasy? Describe it to me.”

Damen breathed in almost soundlessly before having gathered enough of his wits to do what Laurent asked. His voice was a little lower than usual, not quite in a fake erotic way. He sounded-… if Laurent had to give it a word – and it was difficult as he could not analyze Damen’s all-too expressive face – it would be ‘awe’.

_Are you in awe of my stupidity? I know better than to trust you to be true._

“We’re in a large room with stone walls made intimate by flickering fire. Lush quarters.” His smile was perceptible even through the phone and Laurent found himself wishing he could see it. _Weak._ “A prince’s quarters. Yours, not mine. You invited me inside.”

“Hm,” hummed Laurent, unable to resist the innuendo, “I suppose I did.”

Damen went on, undeterred. “You’re sitting on the edge of a four-poster bed draped with heavy curtains. It is tall enough that your face is at the same height as mine when I kiss you.”

“Maybe I like that you have to bend down to kiss me.”

Damen was decidedly less unaffected by this.

“I am kissing you,” he said, with an audible strain. “I find it difficult to want to do anything else when I’m around you.”

“Nothing else?” Laurent laughed low in his chest. “And here I thought you were taking off my clothes.”

“You distracted me. You bit your lip when my fingers brushed your nipples.”

“Yes. I was surprised by how good it felt. How much I wanted you to keep touching me there.”

An opportunity. An experiment.

With one hand, Laurent unbuttoned his dress shirt.

“You make this small noise into my open mouth as I lay my palms fully on your skin. Both hands underneath the shirt I’ve unlaced. I linger there, let the pads of my thumbs caress your nipples almost too gently for you to feel it at all.”

“I can feel it,” whispered Laurent, voice rough. “I can feel it, Damianos.”

“Fuck, are you-…”

“Keep going.”

“I kiss my way down your neck. Open-mouthed, breathing ragged with desire.” He was clearly having trouble keeping it steady even outside the fantasy. Not that Laurent was much better, biting his lips as his fingers, carefully, explored.

“My hands wander further down, to meet at the small of your back. I’m holding you up as I take your nipple in my mouth.”

“Which side?” asked Laurent, sounding strained. “Which side, tell me.”

“Your left.” Laurent moved his hand there. “Close to your heart. I can feel it beating against my lips.”

Unlike Damianos, he was not touching his cock. It was not necessary. He felt it jerk against his strained pants.

“I put my hand into your hair,” he said, mindless with the picture Damianos was painting, with the gentle, worshipful words in his ear, with the utter abandonment his own hand was bringing.

“You guide me into a rhythm that pleases you,” Damen said, with more calm than Laurent was capable of at the moment.

“I have no idea what pleases me, I’m holding on to you because I _can’t help it_. My other hand is gripping the sheets.” He couldn’t stop touching his nipple, couldn’t stop chasing the sensation of imagining Damen’s mouth on him. “You overwhelm me,” he said, destitute in the face of his own desire.

“I release you when your breathing gets too rough,” Damen said, sounding at least as aroused as Laurent was feeling, “You look at me like-…”

And Laurent was gone. He would unbutton his pants if he could bear to separate his free hand from his chest, would take himself in his fingers, would find completion without it, maybe, with Damen, with _Damen_.

“I want you to keep undressing me,” Laurent said, without thought, without control, without any of the things he valued, “I want to bare myself before you. I want to feel your gaze on every inch of my skin. I look at you like a man who has never wanted any of this before.”

And Damen must have noticed how out of character this was for Laurent, because he asked, “Are you alright? Is this too much for you?”

He was so close he was _throbbing_ against restraining fabric. His hand dropped to it at last, opened his pants, as good as whimpered, “I push the shirt off myself.”

It had to have been what Damen needed to hear, judging by the sharp intake of breath and the resuming description. “Your skin looks spectacular against the backdrop of the dark curtains. But it’s your eyes I can’t look away from. They’re defiant. Like you’re daring me. Like you’re daring yourself.”

Laurent’s hand stilled, then lifted away entirely. His heartbeat was pulsing through every part of him. 

“Enough,” he said and looked away from where he was hard and wanting and vulnerable. “Enough, for now.”

“Okay,” said Damen, easily. Without even missing a beat. An acknowledgement, as if he hadn’t been as close to orgasm as Laurent had been. As if it were simple. As if this could be _simple_.

As if this wouldn’t tear open carefully omitted wounds even if Laurent could entrust more than his body to those large, warm hands.

As if the truth wasn’t that there were other ways Laurent could get information out of Damianos. None of them needed to include any sexual relationship between them. Damen being bought, he’d take whatever tiny scraps of friendship Laurent might throw him. And if Damen was no one but who he said he was, he’d still be grateful for them.

But the fact remained that for the first time in his life, Laurent _wanted_. And even if everything else was a lie, _physically_ , Laurent trusted him. To take care. To respect. To hold safe without choking the life out of that little bit of molten gold left of him.

He felt raw inside as he pulled the blanket over his tender lap, unable to deal with this even in the utilitarian way of tucking himself back into his pants.   

“Don’t hang up yet,” he said, and hated how he sounded.

“Whatever you need.”

“I need a moment. I need-…” some semblance of control back. “Talk to me. About anything. Anything else.” It was too much like pleading. His breathing was still labored, if for a different reason now. “What did you do at work after I left? After our,” the word tasted strange in his mouth, “date.”

Laurent didn’t feel guilty for inquiring. It was research. An opportunity.

His erection finally began to go down.

“I didn’t get as much work done as I probably should have.” Laurent imagined Damen shifting on the bed, settling in more comfortably. Switching the phone to the other ear, maybe, as if in preparation for a longer conversation. “Nikandros yelled at me for at least half an hour.”

Laurent raised an eyebrow and allowed a modicum of relaxation himself.

“Very likely told you that I was a snake that could not be trusted.”

“You did trick him into thinking you spoke only French,” said Damen, sounding _fond_ of all things.

“Yes, it was-… revelatory. You are quite popular with your employees.” Who never heard about any financial troubles. “I’m surprised you haven’t banged that sweet kid at the front desk,” said Laurent, considered it and added, “possibly on the front desk.”

Damen gave him a laugh for it. That same low, pleasant laugh that reminded Laurent of long sunsets in the Mediterranean.

“A couple of years ago, I might have,” Damen said. “I wasn’t-… I wasn’t as aware of differences in station. I’d never encouraged separation based on career levels, and I didn’t see the harm in sleeping with people I worked with.”

And there it was. At long last, a sign of this man having any sort of flaw at all. This was information Laurent could use. Why he would admit to it openly, Laurent couldn’t say. Maybe it was some spun narrative. He needed to know more of it to be able to find out the reasons behind it.

In any case, it was exactly the distraction he needed.

“What happened that made you change your mind?”

“Nothing, thankfully. I was with Jokaste and as we got more serious, I felt she deserved better than to have me sleeping with other people, particularly those we both interacted with on a professional basis every day. I might have-… encouraged Erasmus a little after we broke up,” no surprise the boy was so smitten, then, “but Nikandros interfered.”

“I almost pity him,” said Laurent, with some satisfaction. “Nikandros. If he weren’t so blatantly straight, I’d say he was in love with you, the way that vein at his temple starts throbbing as soon as your sex life comes up.”

Again, Damen laughed easily. Then turned serious once more.

“He’s a good friend. He has kept me from making a fair share of bad decisions, Erasmus included. Around that time, a competitor got hit with rather severe sexual harassment charges. And while I would like to believe all my sexual encounters with employees to have been more than consensual, which was not the case for my competitor, it did open Nikandros’ eyes on the dangers of power imbalance. And then mine.”

Laurent could hear him shift on the bed and briefly wondered how long he would keep talking without insisting on reaching completion.

“He confronted me about it,” Damen went on, ignorant of Laurent’s wandering thoughts. “And I began paying more attention to such matters myself. He was right, of course. As much as I do see most of my employees as friends, they are also people dependent upon my money for their livelihood. Entering a sexual relationship under those circumstances was not something I could continue to feel comfortable with.”

Ah yes. That was the narrative. The good man you could trust.

_Why, then, are you starting to believe it? Are you truly that foolish? That easily entranced by scraps of affection and common human decency?_

“You probably broke poor Erasmus’s heart,” said Laurent, and wondered at his choice of words.

“Oh, he wasn’t disappointed for too long,” Damen insisted with an audible smile. “He met his current boyfriend shortly afterwards and even reconnected with a high school sweetheart.” Laurent’s eyebrows shot up. “He’s in a quite happy polygamous relationship now.”

Who’d have thought.

“He’d still let you bend him over that desk in a heartbeat,” said Laurent, without bite.

“Well, I’m not interested anymore,” said Damen, with even less.

“What makes you think I’m a less dangerous choice than a doting employee?”

_Why can you not see that I would take your life apart if what I found out truly were your sole reason for all this?_

Damianos did not play it off easily, as Laurent might have predicted.

“Oh, I think you’re plenty dangerous. The way you looked at me that day was so sharp I might have cut myself on it.” But instead of understanding his own words, Damianos grew _concerned_. And not even about himself. “I forgot to ask: Did Jokaste say anything to make you upset?”

And Laurent suddenly did not feel like playing anymore.

“Maybe you should listen to Nikandros and stay away from me.”

“Why would you say that?”

_Because if you really are just a sweet guy who lives in the same building and brings strangers pie, you deserve better._

“I don’t wish to continue this scene tonight, Damianos,” he said, softly.

“I didn’t expect you to.” He could hear the frown over the phone. “Did you think I was biding my time? I was _enjoying_ just talking to you.”

Whatever his motivations were, Damen only lied by omission. Probably because he was a terrible liar.

This was not a lie.

“You may call me tomorrow,” said Laurent, helplessly.  

“I will, then.” His smile was far too easy to picture. So easy.

_I would give much for you to be who you say you are._

“Uhm, which number would you prefer?” Damen added, a bit sheepishly.

“My private cell will do, thank you,” answered Laurent. Then, in a failing attempt to regain either levity or leverage, “This would all have been easier if you had just accepted my call. I should probably find out how much I owe you now. Seeing as you didn’t even get your money’s worth.”

Unsurprisingly, levity fell flat and Damen was a hard target for anything other than _honesty_.      

“There is no need for it now. I would, however, prefer doing this without paying you for it in the future,” he was saying, sounding contemplative and more earnest even than usual. “Not that I mind giving you money, but I dislike that it makes you feel obligated to do anything. I had a very good time talking to you today, sexually or not.”

Laurent breathed out. Held that emptiness in his chest for a moment and let the gold fill what space it left.

“Good night, Damianos.”

One day, Laurent would cover that left dimple with a finger and feel its warmth sink into his skin.

“Good night, Laurent.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, that's that. This chapter was my attempt to stop Damen from being Practically Perfect in Every Way. It's genuinely difficult to find anything worse in this boy than being too good? I think in canon, this is mostly the not having a problem with using slaves thing, which obviously does not apply here and needed to be slightly altered. I didn't want any change in his attitude towards this be a big plot point, as he's too enamoured with Laurent to be at all interested in seducing any of his employees anyway, but I felt it should at least be mentioned that being in a position of power and people potentially not being able to say 'no' did not naturally occur to him. 
> 
> Next up: Damen wants to bake with Laurent and ends up with a fork stuck in his leg.
> 
> Updates might come slower as I also need to work on my DeanCas Reverse Bang.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My dear readers! 
> 
> I am so sorry for taking so long to update. Those who follow me on tumblr (my-honourable-barbarian, if you want to find me) may have seen a couple of excuses already, but the main deal is this: While I was writing the chapter I announced (and also the one after that), I realized something else needed to happen beforehand. And that has been incredibly difficult to write, because I wanted to get it absolutely right. 
> 
> As I've ended up with over 7k (because they kept adding important stuff they wanted to do), I've now decided to split it. Today's chapter is more of a prelude to the next than anything (with one minor plotty thing). The other, which I have finished and will post on Friday, I have found needs its own space. 
> 
> I have updates for three weeks ready, so I'm fairly confident that from now on, I will be able to resume my weekly Friday updates. I hope you're still with me and thank you for your patience! 
> 
> WARNINGS: There are a couple of references to Laurent's abuse in this chapter as well. As it has become a major plot point, I've decided to add it as a general warning for the entire fic. It's not too horrible in this one, but please, read with caution.

Damen was happy.

He had woken up smiling and hard, still riding the tail end of a dream that had featured Laurent’s laugh, suffused with sunlight, and what had to be a memory of when he’d avoided checking out a fine backside in skinny jeans. Apparently, even furtive looks left an impression when what you were trying not to stare at was impressive.

Added to this, of course, was the very vivid memory of more pleasant aspects of a generally very complicated moment between them. He may have turned down Laurent that night, but he had certainly not forgotten the desperation of his kiss, nor the feel of him beneath Damen’s grateful hands.

And he was allowed this now, wasn’t he? Recently, Laurent had hardly been repulsed by Damen’s blatant attraction to him. ‘Flattered’ was not a word that could ever be used in the same sentence as Laurent, but he was undoubtedly and shamelessly _smug_ about it.

It also did not appear to be a one-sided infatuation, either. Even treading lightly, as one probably should with Laurent, Damen could say that much with confidence now. Physically, with certainty. Perhaps, he thought with a smile, emotionally as well.

He did not require Laurent’s voice to take care of himself in the morning, floating along on memories and diffuse anticipation. 

* * *

His good mood carried him through the rest of his day; into a meeting with his brother, even, who had just returned from a longer business trip. It should have put a damper on Damen’s easy smile, particularly as Kastor seemed rather put off by it and did not mince his words about it either.

“This is exuberant, even for you,” Kastor said. “What brought it on?”

“I met someone,” said Damen, simply. He had not spoken to his brother about private concerns since his affair with Jokaste, but it seemed a good time to break the unspoken taboo and try to recapture their relationship before. Something he had before only done by avoiding the subject of romantic or sexual entanglements altogether.

Kastor, however, only seemed _more_ consternated.

“Oh,” he said, uncomfortably.

“He’s wonderful,” Damen continued, with a wide smile. “And I think he likes me.”

“That’s-…” Kastor trailed off, as if, despite having edited many a book, looking for a word beyond his vocabulary, “…nice.”

Perhaps spending time with Laurent, who held his feelings so close to his chest and as far from visible as possible, had taught Damen to better glance subtleties, for he detected Kastor’s following smile was not entirely truthful.

“I know this has been a difficult topic between us, brother,” Damen said in sudden desire to erase any mar the past had left between them, “but where I’m concerned, it need not be. I hope you find happiness as well.”

He hesitated to continue and saw Kastor’s gaze flicking away. It was less than a second, but it seemed to betray a measure of guilt Damen wished for him to stop carrying.

“And if you wish to pursue Jokaste, you should feel free to do so. I have no idea if she would be open to it, but I have been meaning to tell you that I wouldn’t have a problem with it.”

Kastor did not smile now, and Damen appreciated the honesty in his brother’s gaze. He had flushed a little, but Damen could not tell if from ire or guilt.

“I’m not trying to be condescending,” he added. “But I feel this has been standing between us for too long.”

Still, Kastor did not say anything. Eventually, he gave Damen a nod. A slow, hesitant nod, jaw clenched.

“Now let us talk of easier things,” said Damen, feeling even lighter now that he had taken a step towards genuine reconciliation, “like the excellent place our company is in.”

And they did.

* * *

Laurent would like to say it was cold pragmatism and the knowledge that the inevitable would come (pun intended), that brought him here. His intention had been to buy lubrication, but the second he stopped in front of boxes and strips varying in size and promises, he felt out of his depth.  

He’d be more comfortable at looking at the raunchier section of a sex toy store than the condom aisle of a common drugstore.

Presumptions about size may be easily made based on previous collected evidence (such as overall bulk, the look of it in sweatpants, a tented sheet during interrupted intercourse, the brief and overwhelming feel of it against Laurent), but truthfully, he felt at a loss about the entire subject. He had no experience with prophylactics. He hadn’t even thought as far as prophylactics.

He picked up a packet and put it back.

Picked up a bottle of lube instead, of a similar kind as the one he’d thrown out almost a year ago.

Breathed in and tried to be rational about it. To find a balance between anticipation and dread.

The fact was, he did not often get hard. When he did, he could rarely get comfortable enough to deal with an erection in any other way than to ignore it entirely. Even when he did put his hands on himself, more often than not, he could not bring himself farther than to almost painful frustration. His thoughts went to places he did not wish to actively connect with pleasure. When he did manage to come, it left him shaky and disoriented and in a worse state than before. Feeling like he’d done something wrong.

Knowing why he felt that way.

Before, he had meant to use the lube to help facilitate the use of his hand. It had. The foreign experience of it had been substantial enough to make him forget what he was doing. He had been three fingers deep and in a haze of pleasure because of it when he’d realized what he was doing and where his mind was drifting.

He hadn’t touched himself for over four months after that.

Then he’d decided he might have a preference, but it needed to be divorced from previous experience. Which was when he’d set up the phone sex line.

He’d thought himself ready for _something_ , at least.

Now, he was standing in the middle of shelves full of condoms of different sizes, flavors and consistencies, and he was at a loss.

He was going to have sex.

Sex meant penetration. Which he had a difficult relationship with. Which he wanted desperately even though he should not.

And Damen would offer him this. Would have condoms ready and not object to using them.

Laurent did not know if that was what he wanted. It might be too much, to make himself do this all at once. Far too much. But moving in increments had not helped in the past. 

He thought of Damen and then, that he could not keep playing this game for much longer. It was rational, to do this now, before he had to give up on the pretense. He could compartmentalize, still. Could know about cold money changing hands and still want what Damen so freely offered. It would be wasteful not to take the opportunity, and time was running out. 

He bought the lube.

* * *

In all honesty, despite it being the good kind of anticipation, Damen had been feeling vaguely impatient all day.

Laurent was unlike anyone else he’d met. He had been as frank as he’d been seductive on the phone last night, and then, when he’d obviously reached some inner limit that Damen could not gage, he’d been subdued to the point of almost being needy. ‘Untouchable’, his less legitimate clients called him, but Damen was starting to think the only reason he let no one close was because without his defenses, he was soft and sweet and easy to hurt in places that did not heal quickly.

Damen had no illusion about having been allowed through all of Laurent’s defenses. He also had no way of knowing how many layers of them Laurent would have up tonight and how they would manifest. He had to expect anything from inconsiderate cruelty to strange, illicit vulnerability to explicit phone sex.

No matter what it would be, he could hardly wait.

But he had waited. He was still waiting.

It was futile, at this point, to pretend he was not utterly enthralled by every aspect of his beautiful neighbor, but at the very least, he could reign in his impatience for an hour longer.     

Or so he thought.

It came so unexpectedly, that he fumbled with the buttons so much he almost declined the call.

“Laurent?” he answered, a little too loudly, and a little idiotically. The number displayed was Laurent’s private cell phone.

Laurent did not answer. There was only silence on the other end. At least until Damen’s hearing had fine-tuned enough to hear the breathing.

Carefully slow, purposefully deep – the kind of breathing one might find in someone trying to work through a panic attack.

“Are you alright?” Damen asked quietly, clutching the phone tighter.

Laurent’s voice, when it came, was thinner than usual. Throatier. More breath than voice.

“I’m alright,” he said, in that strange voice. “I’m-,” another shallow breath, “… _good_.”

Damen dropped the glass he was holding.

“You’re-,” he managed and then could not continue.

“Talk to me,” said Laurent. He sounded almost dreamlike, as if in trance. Damen would ask if he was drunk, but he’d never seen Laurent touch a drop. This was owed to different circumstances.

“I need to hear your voice,” Laurent went on, in that same strange voice. “It’s-… easier when you’re speaking. It’s easier with you.”

He ended on a sigh and Damen’s brain, which had effectively short-circuited, sprang back into gear with a vengeance, producing image after image that had Damen hardening so rapidly he could almost feel the blood rushing down.

“What?” said Laurent, and he might have smiled a little, “Suddenly speechless?”

Truthfully, Damen was. His tongue felt heavy in his mouth, which had become extremely dry. He barely even managed to find the sofa to sit down.

“I did not expect this,” said Damen, honestly.

“Did you think,” another sigh, “that I was unaffected by all we’ve done? By all you’ve promised? You’ve promised so much, from the start.”

What had he promised?

_‘When was the last time anyone ate you out?’_

“I promised to put my mouth on you,” said Damen, and had to press his eyes closed for a moment because the fantasy this provoked was overwhelming in the face of knowing Laurent was touching himself to the same thought.

“You were less flowery than that. Come to think of it, I haven’t heard you speak so explicitly since then. You know, I have no frame of reference for this act,” Laurent babbled mildly, as casually as a man clearly not far from the edge could conceivably be.

“None?”

Damen’s cock was significantly too restrained by the jeans he was wearing, but if he opened them, if he did more than mindlessly grind the heel of his palm down into it, he could not promise to last very long indeed. This was already too heady; this was-...

“You would be the first,” said Laurent, breathily. “Can you picture it?”

Damen _very_ vividly could.

“I would part your flesh with my hands,” he said, and then could not speak. The thought of having Laurent underneath him like this, open, exposed, and wanting, was such an impossibility, such a privilege, that it had him reeling.

“Are you touching yourself there?” he asked finally, because he had to know. Damen himself had by now surpassed fully hard, his free hand pressing into uncomfortable confinement, head thrown back onto the back of the couch, where he was half lying. The friction combined with the imagery Laurent so freely gave was almost too much to take.

“No. Not yet,” said Laurent on an exhale. “I’m trying-… I wanted to know if-… I needed to hear your voice.”

He should continue describing – that was what Laurent had called for – but he found himself repeating, instead, “I did not expect this.”

“Yes, you’ve said. It much could not be any clearer.”

It was a breathy, sly little bit of amusement Damen associated with heavy lids and the quirk of full pink lips.

“Where are you?” asked Damen, helplessly charmed by those little acerbic bites, reminiscent of their very beginning. “What are you doing?”

“What am I wearing?” continued Laurent, helpfully, “I’m sure you can picture it well.”

Again, he was right.

“Laurent-,” groaned Damen, and had to stop touching himself at all, instead balling his free hand into a tight fist next to him on the couch. He was hot all over. He needed to shed clothing. He needed to be naked. He needed to see Laurent. He needed to stop thinking about seeing Laurent.  

“I just took a shower,” Laurent said, conversationally if not for the little hitch between words that Damen now equated with certain ways his hand must be moving on his cock. “I cleaned myself, very thoroughly. I didn’t dress afterwards. Is this what you want to hear? It’s true. I’m on my bed. What position would you like me in?”

“Laurent-”

It was no use. Damen was pulsing with desire inside his jeans now, but still Laurent granted him no reprieve.

“I have been at this for longer than you, yet you’re already incoherent,” he chided mildly. “Fine, I will do the talking. If you were here, I would be on my hands and knees, but for now, I’m on my back, legs spread.” The image conjured up by this was enough to have Damen keening, “I’m stroking my cock with the lube I bought earlier today, imagining it is your hand on me.”

Damen’s hips feebly thrusted up into the empty air above him, eyes pressed closed, all of him overcome with too-fast, irrepressible _need_. “Laurent, I can’t-,” he may have said, or maybe something else, but he may as well not have spoken at all, as still Laurent went on.

“Imagining so many things, Damen. So many things, with _you_.”

Damen, helplessly, very prematurely, came into his pants, too startled by it to have a chance to attempt concealing his pleasure from Laurent.

For a moment, there was nothing on the other side of the line. Then Laurent said, quite calmly, “You know, I’m starting to believe the rumors about your prowess might be exaggerated.”

“You surprised me,” Damen stated, when he could form words. He was just a little bit very mortified. Truly, he had not come this quickly in years, and certainly not without at least taking his cock in hand. “I’m not usually like this.”

“I am not sure I believe you,” said Laurent, with an air of disinterest that could not be more obviously meant to provoke. “Perhaps you should come over and prove me wrong.”

Very clearly, Damen’s thoughts must still be addled from orgasm, as Laurent would definitely not have said that.

“What?” he uttered, once more displaying an astounding amount of intelligence.

“It’s an invitation, Damianos. I’m sure you’re not actually that dense.”

Oh. Okay. He had heard correctly.

Laurent was asking him over with the unmistakable intention of letting Damen touch him.

This was fine. He was _fine_.

“Would you like me to-… take a shower first?” He was finally opening his pants one-handedly to do some damage control with tissues. It would be a good idea, probably, to give Laurent some time to compose himself, and himself the chance to calm down enough not to have _expectations_. As clearly, Laurent’s actions could never be foreseen.

“No,” said Laurent, decisively. “Now. As you are. Don’t take too long.” Then, pointedly. “Though it would appear that’s not something I should be worried about.”

He hung up.

Damen, when he could get off the couch at last, had trouble standing.   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: All the smut. 
> 
> Please also note how I have solved the 'Damen comes in 0.5 seconds with Laurent' problem preemptively.  
> (Honestly, had I figured this out earlier than last night, you would have had an update on Monday...)


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PEOPLE! People, you have no idea. Again, I missed my posting date and it is entirely because Laurent and Damen decided what a finished 5k chapter lacked was some good-natured rimming. And then this happened. Good god. 
> 
> In other news, I had a major revelation regarding the plot and now know exactly where this story is going. It's going to be a long, painful, beautiful ride, people. Seriously, there is some ANGST coming up. But also so much goodness. 
> 
> And first, this. Enjoy. :) Mind the usual warnings of allusions to sexual child abuse.

Laurent stood behind the door waiting. He had pulled a shirt on – that shirt, the oversized one he’d worn to provoke Damen so long ago – boxer-briefs, and nothing else. There was a certain allure to the thought of Damianos having to work to get him naked, of taking off every layer, every tight piece of armor, bit by bit until there was only Laurent left, but metaphorically speaking, Laurent had already allowed for this to happen.

And it was a matter of practicality. He had not wanted to dress only to prolong whatever experience was to follow.

There was a certain inevitability to it that would have Laurent in a brooding mood if he were not physically primed for this encounter. This was what he’d wanted. The crux of the experiment. The opportunity, taken in full.

Damen would not insist on fucking him tonight if Laurent did not ask him to, but Laurent saw no reason not keep denying him. He had been patient. They had been moving at a speed that to someone as experienced in a full and adventurous sexual life such as Damen must appear glacial. He had never once acted as though Laurent was not worth the wait.

Laurent could deliver. He would deliver, tonight.

He was aroused, at the moment. Almost painfully so. Vulnerably so.

Perhaps it would not last, but he knew how to fake it well enough to make it matter little to a partner. Damen would lose himself in Laurent’s body and would not notice and Laurent would know he could not do this again.

Perhaps it would increase under capable hands and a confident smile. Perhaps Laurent would still lose sight of who he was with and know he could not do this again.

Perhaps-…

He opened the door to Damen’s knock.

And things changed. They way they always did when Damen was physically present. Laurent was a concept. Damen was fact.

He was looking at Laurent with eyes so dark they sent a thrill through Laurent’s body. Mouth half-opened in a greeting that would not come, a kiss that was Laurent’s for the taking.  

Damen would be there with him. This, Laurent could trust him with. Could trust the honesty of his desire, the near awe at witnessing Laurent about to surrender. It was precisely the kind of heat that had molten gold too long thought lost, heat magnified now to a previously unknown intensity by the mirror of Laurent’s own want. His own, impossible _want_.

Damen would put his hands on Laurent’s body. His mouth over places that had hardly known caresses. His cock into him, if Laurent allowed it.

And Laurent wanted him to.

It was a relief, amidst all the ways this moment was complicated, to find that Damen was still _simple_.

“Well then,” Laurent said. He could almost manage a smile. “Come in.”

* * *

If Damen had half-readied himself for a further exercise in delayed gratification, he was taught differently within seconds of the door closing behind him. There was no playful mood, no teasing Damen’s unconcealed post-orgasmic state, no barbs that half insulted, half hooked.

The door closed and he found himself pressed against it by a fine body stronger than it seemed. Laurent had not turned on any lights and the sun had gone down. From his bedroom – the door was open – the low glow of a dim light source. Laurent himself was a vision, an impossible vision of debauchment to come, but Damen hardly had the time to drink it in before his senses were occupied by long fingers deftly undoing buttons and a warm mouth, insistent against his.

He had no complaints.

This was not Laurent, on the tail end of a strange, desperate mood that had him more vulnerable than he could bear. This was Laurent, determined.

He had pushed Damen’s shirt off before Damen had even had the time to lay a hand underneath the temptation that was a dress shirt that might as well have been Damen’s own. When Damen found skin, it was soft as a woman’s, but laid over the corded steel of unforeseen muscle.

_Beautiful._

It was a revelation, to be allowed this.

Laurent himself was not shy in touching what parts of Damen he desired to – Damen was not likely to forget any time soon the feather-light, almost clumsy stroking of his chest, the firm grip on his arm – and Damen, joyfully, paid Laurent the same courtesy.   

There was an honesty to Laurent’s kisses Damen was not used to; in this, he was at once artless and explorative, as though half torn between learning the contours of Damen’s mouth and giving himself over to the experience of it. His mouth gave easily under Damen’s own, lips so plump they begged for being bitten, caressed, soothed and conquered again, but it would not have felt like victory if he wasn’t inviting each and every exchange of hot breath.

_Beautiful._

There was no rush now, as much as they both seemed to thrum with excitement, yet no hesitation either. It was likely impossible that Damen could ever have his fill of Laurent’s mouth underneath his, but when he ran a hand up Laurent’s chest underneath the shirt and a low gasp made Laurent break away and tilt his head back, Damen took it for the opportunity it was.

He had been fantasizing about every single part of Laurent for so long, had imagined the pleasure he could give this breathtaking, restrained body. But every fantasy, every half-denied or thought-out or even spoken scenario could not come close to what it felt like to put his mouth on Laurent’s neck and feel Laurent’s entire body sag into his arms.

The hand that had been swiftly undoing Damen’s pants fell away as Damen trailed kisses along the sharp line of his jaw, down a blue vein, to Laurent’s pronounced collarbone. He varied in pressure, in intensity, between mere brushes of his lips over impossibly fine skin to bruises sucked into stark relief, soothed by Damen’s tongue and hot breath against the light remaining moisture.

_Beautiful._

He was half holding Laurent up now, had turned them while Laurent hung limply, sweetly in his arms so that it was Laurent’s back against the wall, Damen’s leg pressing just slightly over the pronounced bulge underneath expensive-feeling boxer briefs. His pants had fallen down at some point, allowing them both the somewhat dizzying experience of Damen’s naked thigh rubbing against the soft skin of Laurent’s inner thigh.

“Take off,” Laurent finally gasped after Damen had pulled back enough to smile down at half-lidded dark blue eyes, “my clothes.”

One of Damen’s hands had folded around the nape of Laurent’s neck, disturbing usually perfectly coiffed hair even further. It was even softer than he remembered. Laurent did not object to being kissed again as Damen one-handedly opened the last three buttons that held Laurent’s shirt closed. It was more of a tease than anything, really. Had Laurent appeared the way he usually did – in layers of impeccable, tight dress – Damen could not have done both at the same time.

He pulled back as the last button gave, delighted by the way Laurent unconsciously followed his mouth with his own for just a moment. He even stepped back, just far enough to really, truly look.

Laurent slid down the wall a little, where Damen had apparently brought him to his tiptoes. He was breathing hard, chest rising and falling unsteadily against where Damen’s hand was now trailing, dark and broad on marble skin. Damen pushed the loose shirt back a little and brushed his thumb over an erect nipple. Laurent bit his lip. His heart, underneath Damen’s palm, stuttered.

Damen could hardly look away, but let his gaze be drawn up by dark bruises forming along Laurent’s high throat. He would brush back the strands of hair that had fallen into Laurent’s eyes if it were less of a delightful look.    

 _This is Laurent_ , he thought, suddenly, giddily, _I’ve put hickeys on the ice prince._

“Don’t laugh at me,” said Laurent, who was missing the point completely. Knowing him and judging by the slight exasperation in his bright eyes, it might even be on purpose.

The solution to this new challenge was simple: Damen took his mouth again, so that Laurent could feel it was happiness, not mockery.

There was no difficulty in divesting Laurent of what little clothing he was left wearing, but Damen allowed himself a moment of appreciation for the outfit anyway. This dress shirt so ridiculously large it looked as though it could be Damen’s. Before, it had only been buttoned enough not to fall open.

“Did you wear this on purpose? When you interrupted Jokaste and me?”

Laurent’s lack of answer was clear enough. Damen was grinning openly now and kissed the bone of Laurent’s shoulder where the shirt had slipped down. It wouldn’t take much to make it hit the floor entirely.

“I like you more when you’re the one at a disadvantage,” complained Laurent, but Damen could tell he was pleased Damen had understood this much.

“You wanted me,” Damen said, happily, and pulled, leaving nothing but gleaming white skin to Damen’s greedy eyes.  

“I considered it,” said Laurent, and put his hand back on Damen’s cock. Damen stopped speaking.

For all Laurent’s seeming innocence in so many things physical, he was nothing less than expert at this. Damen, as much as their telephone interaction had embarrassed him, was suddenly very, _very_ glad he’d come already.

“You like,” Damen eventually ground out, “doing this.”

Reducing Damen to an incoherent mess, he meant.

It was clearly not what Laurent understood.

Laurent went as still as if he’d called him a whore. He didn’t even seem to keep breathing. 

 _That’s not what I meant_ , thought Damen desperately, as Laurent looked away from him, eyes unfocused, hand still loosely wrapped around him. He was about to say as much, to say whatever it took to get Laurent to stop looking so stricken, but Laurent spoke first.    

“I like the shape of you.” It was barely more than a whisper, in a strange way intensely private.

He resumed his movements, but slower, more deliberately, watching his own hand bring forth pre-come, his thumb that pressed down lightly on the wet, overly sensitive tip. The visual was easily as intense as the feel of it.

Damen groaned and took hold of Laurent’s wrist. “If you don’t stop now, we won’t make it to the bedroom.”

“And here I thought you were aiming to prove me wrong about your stamina,” said Laurent, tonelessly. He was still not looking at Damen. It could have been interpreted as cold, easily so, if it were not for the tense way Laurent held himself, the carefully controlled rise and fall of his chest.

Damen’s previous cursedly _thoughtless_ statement still seemed to echo within him in a way Damen very much wished to revoke.

Instead of choosing the wrong words again, he slipped his fingers between Laurent’s. Laurent did not clasp his hand, but he also did not object to having his own raised between them. His eyes followed it, that beautiful juxtaposition of milky paleness and slender fingers against Damen’s brown skin and broad palm. When Damen pressed a soft kiss to Laurent’s wet knuckles, Laurent breathed in with a shudder.

“Look at me,” Damen said, quietly. “Please.”

Finally, Laurent did. It was familiar, in a way. How at war with himself he appeared. Jaw clenched, posture stiff, eyes so carefully devoid of emotion they seemed like ice. Damen would give anything to be able to help.

 _Tell me how I can make this good for you_ , he thought. For all his own experience, his own expertise at this, he was powerless in the face of Laurent’s demons. _Tell me how I can get you out of your head._  

Everyone else, he would simply touch. With everyone else, he could rely entirely on his own physicality and his confidence at being able to coax pleasure out of his partner. With Laurent the same approach could and at times did work, but this was too reminiscent of when Laurent had said, _‘I don’t think I can stand to be touched right now.’_

“You make me happy,” Damen said, finally, and with honesty. He wrapped his other hand around Laurent’s as well, loosely enough that Laurent could pull away should he wish to, but hopefully a grounding touch nonetheless. He spoke the words against the knuckles he’d kissed, then brushed his lips against near white, slender fingertips. “I feel very blessed that you’re letting me be here with you right now.”

He did not look away from Laurent. Watched something raw come over him, something so vulnerable Damen felt like an intruder. But Laurent was letting him see this, and he did not avert his eyes.

It took a long time, nonetheless, until Laurent moved. It was barely more than a flutter of his fingers, a slight tightening against Damen’s palm, but it seemed to break the spell.

“I’m cold,” he said, and took Damen’s hands for himself. Laid them around his waist, where he was cool and tense and breathtaking under Damen’s palms. “Take me to bed.”

* * *

Laurent’s bedroom was a field of study that could easily have occupied all of Damen’s attention if their current situation were any less immediate.

It was both more personal and more austere than the other rooms. There was a bookshelf, a far larger collection than even the many novels scattered around the rest of his apartment had hinted at. The bed was a single. It was so small Damen would have trouble fitting on it. All of it, as a small, compact unit, was intensely private. It could not more clearly be a space made for Laurent to be alone.

For now, he did not have the time nor the patience to explore the set-up any further, as he had been invited into this private space to explore Laurent’s body, and this took precedence.

It really, really took precedence.

Damen had left his pants somewhere in the living room, along with both their shirts. His eyes had grown accustomed to seeing Laurent in the half-dark of very scattered moonlight but had not prepared him for a more intimately lit view of pale expanses of skin, of the gold of beautifully disheveled hair, of how stunning his eyes truly were.

Laurent had laid back on the bed, hands above his head just where Damen might press them, eyes heavy and calculating. The one-sided light of the dim lamp on the nightstand gave him a strange Mona Lisa smile, half his face serious and devoid of any expression that could be easily read, the other with the slightest quirk of lips and surprising warmth in his blue, blue eye.    

Laurent had composed himself, and it was enough to make Damen lose his own calm.

“I want you,” said Damen, and it felt like he was flaying himself open. He had not joined Laurent on the bed – for practical reasons, but also because he had been stupefied by the view – and was rather still standing in the doorway.

Laurent simply looked at him for a long time. It was not the slow, appreciative regard of a lover’s body, but rather something more complicated than the moment called for.

“What are you waiting for, then?”

In a very deliberate move, Laurent let his legs fall open. He was still wearing boxer briefs, but they did nothing to conceal his undiminished state of arousal. Damen licked his lips.

“Take those off.” He indicated Laurent’s underwear, and took himself in hand.

“Wouldn’t you rather do it yourself?” Laurent raised a haughty golden eyebrow. It was somehow diminished by the high flush spreading from his cheeks to his entire upper body. It was utterly enchanting.

“Some other time,” said Damen, decisively. He wasn’t stroking himself in earnest, but he could not deny the relief of giving himself this, nor the satisfaction in seeing Laurent respond to it despite himself. 

After a beat, Laurent pushed down his boxer-briefs. Baring himself to Damen. Damen’s grip tightened, for a moment, as he watched the garment be discarded and Laurent lay back against the sheets.

He was fully aroused, his very pleasing cock the same pink as his cheeks.

“What position would you like me in?”, he asked, after Damen still made no move to join him on the bed. There was an edge to it. Much like in the way he’d spoken on the phone, he did not seem to understand that some pleasure only increased by being drawn out.

Damen breathed out and let go of his own cock. Later. 

“Turn around,” he instructed, and Laurent complied seamlessly. It was a single, smooth move that took what little breath Damen had left from him, that exposed him to Damen completely, knees apart on the mattress, his back dipping, head bowed. It seemed a natural gesture, until the familiar tension caught up with him again. One of Laurent’s hands slipped underneath his pillow, but Damen hardly noticed it in the face of the more immediate view.

He could not suppress a low sound of approval, but had he had a choice, he would have opted for it anyway, for Laurent deserved to know precisely what he was evoking in Damen. 

“Like what you see?” said Laurent sharply, not deviating from the position once he had assumed it. It seemed to do something to him, or maybe the moment was finally catching up with him, since clearly without meaning to, he gave a small, almost invisible roll of his hips. As if in barely withheld anticipation that was immediately reigned in. Damen could see him tense up further and laid a soothing, instinctive hand over Laurent’s flank.

“Yes,” Damen replied. His voice had roughened to express what words could not.

“Are you going to do anything about it?” asked Laurent, in almost the same irritable tone.

“Yes,” said Damen and in a sudden movement grabbed Laurent’s hips and put his mouth on Laurent. It was a good thing he had a hold of his body, because Laurent arched, suddenly, beautifully, with a shocked gasp Damen would never forget for as long as he lived.

“You-… you are actually doing this?”, asked Laurent, half incredulous, half breathless.

“Yes,” repeated Damen and emphasized his point with a broad lick over Laurent’s hole. Laurent’s legs gave the smallest of trembles.

“Lie flat,” he said, and hooked his hands around Laurent’s thighs to guide him down onto the bed.

“I thought you liked me like this.” He complied anyways. Damen would wonder if he understood the allure of how he lay now, his body stretched along the sheets, legs apart just enough that Damen could fuck him exactly like this. Maybe he did, as he angled his head to further pronounce the long line of his neck and the shock of bruises on it.

_I do. I very, very much do._

“I do. But I want you to focus on what I’m doing to you, not on holding yourself up.”

“You’re very confident in your abilities to make me swoon,” prodded Laurent, despite having trembled from barely a lick.

“Yes,” Damen repeated, with a smile. He placed his elbows on the space next to Laurent’s hips, so that they were lightly pressed against his thighs. Then he spread Laurent’s cheeks and let his tongue circle a perfect, pink rim.

Laurent, prepared now, did not make a sound, not for the minutes that followed, but it did not take a light bite to one rounded cheek to feel beautifully shaped muscles twitch.    

Laurent would bruise there, too. He would have Damen’s marks spread over his miracle of a body.

It did not feel like ownership; at least not in the sense that Damen could call any part of Laurent his own.

 _But I am his_ , he thought, as he soothed the bite with tender lips. _I belong to him, entirely_.

It was not a realization so much as it was a truth that sank into a space Damen had apparently long since created for it. It fit. He had no qualms with it.

He was filled with the joy of causing a lover pleasure.

He had no qualms with the term lover.

He had no qualms with love.

* * *

Laurent had a hard time breathing.

Damen was… _immensely_ talented at this and they were not sensations Laurent was in any way used to.

He had led them here to get fucked. It would have been simpler, if Damen had done nothing else. If he had merely lost himself in Laurent’s body, taken without consideration, or at least gone mindless enough to not notice should Laurent be unable to perform just as well.

Damen was working very hard, at the moment, to pleasure Laurent, and despite the undeniable, hot, shivering sparks of just this, Laurent could not get any closer to orgasm.

“I can’t-,” he forced out, and again, “I can’t- It’s _no use_!”

It was the loudest either one of them had spoken since this began. In a more dramatic setting than Laurent’s small, one-person bedroom, it would have echoed.

Here, it only made Damen pull away.

It was humiliating. All of it, humiliating. Damen was performing this act on him, _for him_ , and seemed to enjoy it well enough, yet Laurent could not let go. Was keeping them both on the precipice, for no reason other than having reached the limit of what he could physically do.

He was so hard he was pulsing. His entire body felt made of tension there seemed to be no release for.

Damen, unexpectedly, did not reply in words, nor did he resume his activities, but instead nudged Laurent just a little bit to the side to be able to fit himself against him. It was ridiculous, almost, to have this giant of a man try to lay on this bed with Laurent, but he made it work.

He laid his head next to Laurent’s, and did nothing except look at him with a strange light in his eyes. The arm that was not keeping himself from falling began to slowly move along Laurent’s back.   

“Disappointing,” Laurent bit out, but it lost its malicious savagery halfway out of his mouth. Damen pushed the hair back from his face and smiled very softly.

“I don’t think so,” he whispered. “You are perfect, like this.”

“Desperate?” hissed Laurent, and turned his head away in frustration. Damen did not let him. It was barely more than a soft pressure against his chin, but Laurent for some reason seemed unable to simply decline him.

“So close to letting yourself just have this,” Damen said, and smiled with an aching tenderness.

It had Laurent reeling.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re trying too hard to come. I wasn’t aware this was your goal so quickly. I was aiming for a slower build-up. I’ll do better, now.”

His lips were even fuller than usual from his exertions, and the words that fell from them spoken with something Laurent could not begin to grasp. Could barely file away to examine later, when he was so blindsided with it at the moment.

“Slow is good,” he heard himself say. It had not been deliberate, but the way he made his body relax underneath Damen’s soothing hand was. He had not known touch to be grounding, before Damen. Had not known it could be nothing but a steady, unassuming caress.

“Nonetheless, I can do better,” said Damen. He was still looking at Laurent as though this was exactly where he’d always longed to be. “Don’t worry so much. I’ll make this good for you.”

Laurent breathed out and closed his eyes.

“You already are.”

Damen pressed a soft, unexpected kiss against Laurent’s temple, then – as well as he was able – rearranged himself without falling off the bed. There was something sweet about how clumsy this was, in comparison to the skill he was excising in all the rest of this encounter.

“Lift your hips,” he said, once he was positioned behind Laurent once more. “Like this. With your knees underneath your body.”

 _I like this_ , thought Laurent, in a moment of weakness. _I like the way you handle me._

His cheeks did not need to be held apart on this angle, as Damen had clearly intended. Damen’s hand rested on Laurent’s flank instead.

_I like your hands._

And then, as Damen unashamedly went back to what he’d been doing before, dizzily, _I really like your tongue_.

As promised, Damen did begin slow, with the same moves Laurent could now begin to recognize, categorize, almost picture. Laurent focused on his breathing, and let the pressure inside of him build once more.

There were moments, now, when Damen’s mouth deviated, pressed kisses where he had previously bitten Laurent’s cheek. When he tongued at the space just below Laurent’s testicles – _good_ – or sucked another bruise on the side of Laurent’s hip. _Very good._

He always, unerringly, returned to his task, added variations Laurent stopped being able to keep track of, both because they probably required intensive study and because they had him near keening.    

_Very, very good._

Through the slowly building haze, Laurent could hear something else. It took him a few very complicated moves of Damen’s tongue against his rim to be able to understand that Damen had taken himself in hand again and was stroking himself to the rhythm in which he was taking Laurent apart.

Sudden, intense heat spread all throughout Laurent’s body.

 _He is pleasuring himself to my pleasure_ , he thought, and without meaning to whimpered into the pillow.

Whatever Damen had been waiting for, this must have been it. Laurent was granted one long breath of reprieve before Damen had shaped his mouth over his hole and _sucked_.

Laurent’s hips rolled in time with the gasp of surprise that missed the pillow by a narrow margin.

Then Damen pushed his tongue into Laurent and Laurent’s mind went white and hot and stopped being mind and became body. Became body entirely.

 _I have never_ , he thought, _never been fucked like this._

And he came.         

* * *

He returned to himself in bits and startled pieces.

His stomach was wet, his legs trembling as though the strain of being trapped underneath him during this had finally taken its toll. He could hear Damen groaning softly, the unmistakable sound of a hand moving fast and with purpose.

With effort, Laurent turned enough to be able to see.

“Stop,” said Laurent, throat dry. And Damen, to Laurent’s mild astonishment, did. He was breathing hard, flushed all over, his swollen cock a thing of beauty in proportion with the large hand he had wrapped around it. His eyes were very, very dark.

“I’m not sure I can-…” said Damen finally, eyes closing, hand twitching, “I need to-…”

“You don’t want to come like this.” He was glad he sounded steadier than he felt. With one hand, he found the pack of tissues he had set on the nightstand. Thankfully, it did not require much movement to wipe himself off.

“I do. I really, really do,” said Damen, with eyes imploring, desperately focused on Laurent’s face, because the position Laurent’s body was in, perhaps even the evidence of Laurent’s orgasm clearly had him out of his mind with need.

But whatever he found in Laurent’s eyes was enough for him to actually take his hand off his cock.

_Impressive._

For a long time, Damen simply panted, eyes now averted, as if to gather himself. Finally, he said, “I can take care of this in the bathroom, if that’s what you prefer.”

To his credit, there was barely more than a little tremble in his voice now, and he did not look angry.

“We aren’t done,” said Laurent, and handed Damen the bottle of lube he had been grasping underneath the pillow. It was done in a single, smooth movement that had Laurent half rolling to his side. He could see Damen’s face well from this angle.

Could see what this revelation was doing to him.

It was sweet, as most things with him were, how easy he was to read. How little he tried to conceal his reactions, neither the undeniable coiling of his barely placated body nor the look on his face.

Laurent’s own body was sated. Relaxed in a way almost unknown to him. He had achieved the impossible. He had been brought to orgasm by this man. He could handle more. He would handle more. There was no better time for more.  

“Are you sure this is what you want?” asked Damianos finally. His body was trembling lightly, a fist white-knuckled against Laurent’s sheet. He was gleaming with a fine layer of sweat that cast his upper body into an even more dramatic light than his wild eyes. He was showing remarkable restraint.

It was not necessary.

“I would not be asking if I was not.”

Laurent laid the lube between them, as Damen seemed unwilling or perhaps unable to take it out of his hand. Damen’s gaze followed the discrete bottle, and then finally reached for it.

“Have you done this before?” he asked, as he took it up.

“Yes,” said Laurent and turned his face to the pillow. He canted up his hips anew and Damen’s free hand grasped him there.

 _Different_ , he told himself and willed some of the returning tension back out of his body. _This is different. I’m choosing this._

Damen did not simply begin. As a matter of fact, he didn’t move much for a while, safe for running his thumb along the line of Laurent’s hip bone. And when his other hand found Laurent’s body, it appeared he hadn’t even opened the lube yet. Instead, he followed the dip and curve of Laurent’s spine to its apex, touched briefly where he had already opened Laurent with his tongue, but did not linger.

“What,” said Laurent, unexpectedly breathless from this tender gesture, “are you waiting for? Put your fingers in me.”

“Turn around,” said Damen, gently. “Please. I want to see your face.”

“Why?” asked Laurent, and moved his hips once, in a way that had Damen tightening his grasp for a moment. “You like me like this. You’ve been wanting to fuck me exactly like this since you first saw me.”

Damen did not deny it.

“Yes. But I would like to be able to kiss you while I open you up.”

There was a gentle pressure on Laurent’s hip now, not sufficient to force a change in position, but enough to encourage it.

 _I’m not sure you will like what you see while you do_ , thought Laurent, but let himself be turned.

The bed was too small. He had not bought it to be fucked on. Damen was half kneeling on it still, one leg anchoring him to the ground at the end of the bed. His impressive physique emphasized how small it really was, even as he guided Laurent’s body into a position he preferred for this.

He was quite close to the end of the bed himself, now, one foot on the mattress, the other on Damen’s massive shoulder. His hands arranged themselves just slightly over his head. As before, he did not correct their placement when he noticed they had fallen there as if naturally.

_This is different. It’s different._

Laurent found it difficult to look at Damen but did so anyway. The broadness of his chest was overwhelming. The clear definition of muscles covering his entire body made Laurent feel vaguely faint with almost uncomfortably desire. _Handsome_ , supplied his half-addled mind, as his gaze briefly fell on the lock of hair that had tumbled over Damen’s dark eyes. _Very… attractive._

_I am choosing this._

“Can I?” asked Damen, with a small smile that seemed almost shy. It accompanied a gesture at the lower half of Laurent’s body.

“I thought that was the point,” said Laurent, irritably. He had expected Damen to be halfway done rutting into him by now. He was not sure he preferred this. He opened his legs further in absolutely explicit invitation.

And without further warning, Damen went on his knees and took Laurent’s soft cock into his mouth.

“What-…” gasped Laurent, as his body arched, unexpectedly, involuntarily. Damen put both hands on his hips and continued.

There was no need to get Laurent hard. It was not necessary for the act that was to follow.

“What are you doing,” Laurent managed finally, and with a pull at Damen’s hair, he stayed the movement of his head. His full lips remained wrapped around Laurent’s cock. The image was obscene and wrong and Laurent was hardening visibly the longer he stared. “I will not reciprocate,” he ground out, and Damen pulled off.

Laurent fell back on himself. He tried his best not to be disappointed. His body was aching. His mind was racing. “Just put your fingers in me,” he said, and looked away.

“Are you objecting?”, asked Damen, voice as warm and inviting as ever.

 _Curse you_ , thought Laurent, desperately. _Curse you and your false charm and your strong arms._

“ _Fuck_ me,” said Laurent, almost viciously.

“I want to. Do you not like getting blown?”

_Especially curse your mouth. Your hot, wet mouth. I did not need to know what this feels like._

“I will not do the same to you, Damianos,” he spit out. “Not today nor at any other time.”

Damen, _curse his dimple_ , merely shook his head slightly. He looked amused. Laurent kept getting harder. The tip of him was still wet from Damen’s mouth. Damen was breathing on it, still too close.

“I’m not asking you to,” said Damen. “I’m asking if you’re enjoying this.”

“I-…” said Laurent, thrown, “yes, but-…”

Damen, having apparently heard enough, grinned boyishly and then went back to his task.

Laurent held on for dear life. Under his hand, he could feel every movement of Damen’s head. In every shock of pleasure, he could feel the path of a skilled tongue, the soft inside of a dedicated mouth, lips that wrapped around him and pressed kisses to the tip, the side, closed, open, licking, devouring, sucking-…

It was very, _very_ hard to stay still.

The familiar pressure of well-lubed fingers joined the overall madness. The first slipped in easily and Laurent had to turn his head to the side to suppress a sob. His grip of Damen’s hair must be punishing by now.

Damen slowed down as he slid in and out, as if Laurent needed such extensive prep when he could just split him open. Whatever he intended to achieve with such careful motions, they did nothing but make it harder for Laurent to stay in place. His body was telling him to fuck himself on that finger, to be pliant enough to invite more, to arch, to whimper, to please. It was also telling him how incredibly _good_ it would feel.

Something else said it was wrong to actually enjoy this. That there must be something so broken inside him if he could still enjoy this. He held himself as still as he could and let Damen open him up without encouragement.

A second finger followed, thick and strong and crooking to a spot that had Laurent see white for a second.

 _No, I cannot love this,_ he thought, _Who am I if I love this._ And louder, _Yes, I can. I should. I am only ruined if that is what I see in me._

And,

_Damianos does not look at me and see something broken._

“More,” Laurent gasped, a single, almost incoherent word that tore him apart.

Damen, likely tasting he was close, pulled his mouth off and pressed a kiss to the tense line of a sinew instead. He spread his fingers lightly on the same slow slide in and out and guarded Laurent’s trembling body with the other hand.

Laurent had not realized the tears streaming down his face until Damen had changed position to brush his lips over Laurent’s cheeks and he tasted wet salt on Damen’s lips. They were mixed with a different, slightly bitter salty taste that Laurent could barely ascribe to another part of him.

He did not mind the taste. He did not mind Damen, so close suddenly, over him, chests brushing as he held himself up on one hand and kept stretching Laurent with the other.

“Are you okay,” he heard, barely a whisper in his ear as the fingers slowed down further inside him.

Laurent had no answer. He kissed Damen instead and let every part of them that touched become filled with molten gold. Let it fill him from the inside, raised both hands from where he had pressed them against the sheet over his head and carded one through Damen’s heavy locks, laid the other on the bulging strain of biceps holding Damen above him.

_I want this. I am not broken for wanting this. Damen kisses me and tells me I matter. Damen wishes my pleasure and gives it easily. I can trust him with this. He would stop if I asked. He wouldn’t even be here if I hadn’t asked him into my bed._

He added a third finger. Laurent had never been so full. He had never been so delirious. It was an unrefined kiss, between harsh breaths and tears still coming. His body was half locked up tight, half rocking into the movement. He no longer knew what he was doing because it felt good and what he was repressing because he did not wish to do what had been trained into him. He was gold. He was a broken toy, finally used again. He was not being used, he was being _worshipped_.

“I could take you over the edge like this. We don’t need to go further if you don’t want to.”

“Get,” Laurent hissed, “ _in me_.”

“Okay,” said Damen, pulling back. “I have a condom in the pocket of my pants. I will be-…”

Laurent scrambled upright, wrapping himself around Damen before he could retreat from the bed.

_If you leave now, I cannot do this._

“No condom,” he said, tongue heavy, too honest, stupid, needy. _Don’t leave. Don’t let me think._ “I’m clean. I ran every test available in two separate clinics. Just fuck me. Just-…” _be with me._

“I’m not sure that’s-… I mean I’m clean, too, but-…”

 _Don’t treat me like a child_ , Laurent almost said, but he had not been treated like this as a child. He had not had the option of a prophylactic. He had not had communication. He had not even known. He hadn’t known _anything_.

“Then stop arguing,” Laurent said and put his hand on Damen’s cock, eliciting a sharp gasp. “I consent, Damen. Just fuck me. _I consent._ ”

 _This is different_ , he thought and stroked Damen easily, whose mouth had fallen open and whose eyes had lost focus. No, they did focus. On Laurent’s hand working his cock. On Laurent, underneath him and willing. On spread legs with lube glistening between.

Laurent found it now, the discarded bottle, and without disrupting the rhythm added enough to slicken Damen further than the generous amount of pre-come that had been easing his strokes.

“Get in me. I consent,” he repeated, quietly.

Damen kissed him. Gently. Passionately. Until Laurent’s head swam from this alone and his hand fell slack. One hand in Laurent’s hair, which he so clearly had a weakness for, and the other running down Laurent’s body. His thumb brushed Laurent’s nipple, and Laurent whimpered into the scarcely existing space between them. The sound, barely making it from one mouth to another, sent a shiver down Damen’s spine in return. Laurent could feel it underneath his palm.  

How Damen could still not be in a hurry was leagues beyond Laurent’s understanding of sex. Damen had spent what felt like hours hard now, had come close to the edge more often in that space of time than Laurent had in a decade. Even now, he seemed close enough to fall apart before Laurent would.

Laurent, in an attempt to regain some control over what was happening, lined Damen’s cock up with where he was aching for it. The brush of an engorged tip to his oversensitive flesh had them both breathing harder. Both his knees were bracketing Damianos’ waist now, almost locking him in place. Almost beckoning him closer.

Damen’s hands both found the swell of Laurent’s ass. He lifted Laurent just slightly and moved forward.

Laurent’s flesh parted, drawing from him a short, uncontrolled sound of agony. Damen, above him, the image of a sun god of old even in the dark, was about to pull back again and Laurent forbid it with a single thrust upwards.

“I consent,” he repeated, mindless with pleasure as he was filled completely.

Damen’s head fell forward, an unrestrained groan against Laurent’s throat.

 _This,_ thought Laurent hazily, _this is what I wanted._

This. _With you_.

It was more than that. It was less, because Damen held him in place when Laurent needed to move, needed to chase the feeling, because this was _too much, not enough, too much, fucking wonderful, so close_ , Damen buried deep inside, breathing roughly against the oversensitive, bruised skin of Laurent’s throat.

“Please,” Damen said, “give me a moment.” He pressed a sweet, open-mouthed kiss against one of the bruises he’d left on Laurent earlier and he did not seem to understand that Laurent could not keep still, needed more, needed Damen to move, needed them both to move together.

“You feel,” Damen said, and lifted eyes blown wide, unfocused to Laurent’s, “so good, I can’t hold on.”

Laurent could not speak, did not have words for what he was feeling. His legs had wrapped themselves completely around Damen’s hips, still half raised above the bed.

 _I am made of gold,_ he thought, nonsensically, in a moment beyond metaphor, beyond anything he’d ever felt, _you’re making me gold in every place we touch. You’re melting me from the inside. You’re molding me into a new shape and I am letting you. I am letting you. I am letting you._

Maybe he said it out loud. He tugged on Damen’s hair, and they met in a kiss that seemed made of the very essence of their coupling, hot and wet and too passionate even for the refinement of added tongue. More breath than touch sometimes. Damen finally began to move, a single, controlled slide out of Laurent that had them both keening. It must have been Laurent who drew him back in.

“You,” gasped Laurent into Damen’s curls as long, trembling thrusts became powerful and rhythmless, and lost his train of thought as Damen adjusted his angle.

Lost every last hold on himself.

* * *

Damen almost sobbed in relief when Laurent came, eyes so wide, head thrown back, wet heat against the strained muscles of Damen’s stomach.

He was beyond thought himself, had been for what felt like hours now, but he held on long enough to work Laurent through his orgasm – _untouched_ , he had come _untouched_ again – long enough for it to be inconsiderate to keep thrusting in earnest. With one last effort of will, he stilled and lowered Laurent to the blanket at last, where he lay, an image of fucked-out beauty.

Hair in complete disarray, flushed so deeply and thoroughly his marble skin was pink all over, the trajectory of Damen’s mouth on him mapped out in darker bruises. His plump, well-kissed mouth was slack from pleasure, eyes hooded and dark. His legs remained exactly as they had fallen when they’d relaxed enough to let go of Damen’s hips.

Damen slipped out in a move that had them both shivering and took himself in hand. The comparison to Laurent’s tight heat was lacking, but he did not need much further stimulation.

He would have missed it when Laurent said, “Wait,” had he not been so focused on the shape of his mouth. His sweet, vicious mouth. Laurent’s hand joined Damen’s on his cock, but only long enough to make Damen let go.

“You don’t want to come like this,” said Laurent, a dreamlike echo of his words before. His voice was strange, detached but not cold.

Then he turned to his stomach, gracelessly, muscles overexerted as Damen’s were, barely cooperating. Still, he brought himself into position.

“Like this,” he said, and went on his knees, head lowered between his slack arms. “Take me like this. Then come on my back.”

Damen did the latter before he had even processed the request, without further encouragement.     

* * *

Afterwards, Laurent extracted himself from where Damen had half fallen on top of him, and left the small bed before Damen could even regain his breath. Laurent was still breathing hard himself, in that quiet, restrained way of his. Damen watched as he walked to the bathroom on shaky legs. On his back, Damen’s come glistened in the moonlight. He closed the door behind him.

Damen rolled onto his back – it took a bit of maneuvering not to fall off the bed in the process – and looked for something to wipe himself down with. He sat up to reach the pack of tissues and inelegantly swiped a few over his stomach.

Then he flopped back down into warm, disturbed sheets and tried to focus on the happy, deeply sated part of him and not on the fact that Laurent had not returned yet.

He must have dozed off, because the next thing he saw was Laurent standing in the doorway, wearing the same overly large dress shirt from before.

“You could have worn mine,” said Damen, with a lazy smile.

Rather than answering, Laurent threw Damen something he caught on instinct. It was a wet towel.

Laurent disappeared back into the living room. He probably did not hear Damen say, “Thank you.”

Damen wiped the last traces of uncomfortably dried come away and noticed Laurent had also left him a glass of water on the nightstand. It was-… unexpectedly considerate. He smiled and drained the glass.   

Laurent returned. He was holding Damen’s clothes and did not reciprocate Damen’s smile.   

“You should leave,” he said instead.

Damen, who – despite knowing that he should not rely too much on previous experience when it came to Laurent – had not expected to be kicked out, sat up straighter.

“Oh,” he said. “I thought I would-…”

“You will not. How would you even spend the night? This bed is too small for you.”

The words were cruel, almost. Short and clipped and on the same level as the tension that had reclaimed Laurent’s body so quickly. He had not done up his own shirt completely, yet handed Damen’s too him without further comment. His pants as well. He must have picked both up in the living room. 

 _The bed_ is _too small. But it would not be if I were in it with you. I could make us both fit._

Damen found his boxers on the floor and put on his clothes. Laurent half watched, half did not. Damen did not try to catch his eyes.

 _This was good for you, wasn’t it?_ he wanted to ask and could not. He wanted to ask it in bed, unclothed, with Laurent’s head on his chest and the blanket pulled up over both their bodies. _I need to know if this was good for you or if I made whatever happens with you sometimes worse._

Dressed enough to make it across the hallway without scandalizing anyone, Damen turned to ask, but was halted by the frown splitting Laurent’s beautiful brow.

“This is not,” Laurent began, and evidently, to his great frustration, could not find the words to finish. “I am not dismissing you because-”

“I understand,” said Damen, whose heart did not. He walked towards the door and thought of his own, lonely bed. Of Laurent, who would return here, equally alone. Of warm, fine skin he had touched, just minutes before. “You need some time to process.”

“Yes,” said Laurent, quietly.

“Don’t-… don’t hesitate to knock. Or call. If you need me there. I will be right on the other side of the hallway.”

Laurent gave him a long, indecipherable look. He was a far cry from the tightly dressed ice prince Damen had first encountered, but his eyes were every bit as startling, his skin almost white in the near darkness. His hair – pale gold, now – was still in disarray, betraying his recent abandon as much as the bruises that Damen’s mouth had formed on his high neck.  

Instead of answering, Laurent put his hand on the back of Damen’s head and pulled him down for a kiss.

It remained simple. Close-mouthed. Small. The kind of everyday, monumental kiss couples who’ve been together for most of their lives would give one another. As an unrefined, clear reassurance of affection, maybe. Or maybe because they needed the reassurance themselves.

In this situation, it seemed infinitely complicated. Damen could not grasp its meaning, he only knew he did not want for it to end with them in separate beds, Laurent alone in his dangerous head.

One of his hands lay on the small of Laurent’s back, fitting perfectly over stiff muscles. Laurent pulled back and Damen let go.  

“Please leave now,” Laurent said then, and closed his eyes. “If you-… you may call me tomorrow.”

Damen left.   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Btw I now know why Pacat did not have any of the sex scenes happen from Laurent's POV. That is a very difficult grade to walk and I desperately hope I did all of it justice.
> 
> Also, there was literally zero plan for any of the talking and comforting and revelations of omg I love him? But whatever.
> 
> Next up (finally and - if all goes well - to be posted on Friday): Damen wants to bake with Laurent and ends up with a fork stuck in his leg.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Late again. I had most of this chapter done, but my good old arch-nemesis Depression returned and I had to do some fighting to get back to functional. And even then, what the chapter still lacked gave me a lot of grief. I think I'm okay with what it's like now, but it's not my best work. 
> 
> As this has thrown my writing schedule off, my new official posting day is going to be Monday from now on. I definitely need the week-end for last-minute writing. Also, as you may have noticed, the chapters have gotten a wee bit longer than in the beginning, so from time to time, it might need to slow down to once every two weeks. Next Monday is safe, all I'm missing from Chapter 11 are maybe three hundred words. 
> 
> And, because it really is incredibly important to me: THANK YOU FOR YOUR REVIEWS! They seriously get me through the day sometimes. :) 
> 
> Now to the chapter itself: This sort of kick-starts the more plotty part of this fic. Obviously, the main focus will remain Damen and Laurent, but outside forces will play a bigger part. 
> 
> Please note that this chapter contains Nicaise, and while I hope some scenes may provide some comic relief after the past incredibly introspective and angsty Laurent POV chapters, he is a really fucking tragic character. 
> 
> WARNINGS: References to sexual child abuse and sexual overtures made by someone underage.

Nikandros was not a morning person. Mornings were bad, inconsiderate intrusions with light where there was supposed to be darkness and alarm clocks where there was supposed to be sleep.

Nikandros particularly wasn’t a morning person on week-ends.

He _especially_ was not a morning person when woken on a Saturday by the phone shortly before eight – at least four hours away from his sleep goal. And it wasn’t even Lykaios calling, who was currently overseas and the only reason Nikandros had his phone on at all.

Nonetheless, here it was: noise.

“What,” he barked into the phone when he’d managed to pick it up.

“I’m in love, Nik,” said Damen, because of course that was who was calling and of course that was why he was calling.

Nikandros groaned. “At 7:47 in the morning?”

“Pretty much around the clock,” said Damen, who was missing the point.

Nikandros was about to start his day not only early, but with a headache.

“Not with that terrible French snake man.”

“Of course with Laurent; who else?”

There were things Nikandros could be doing right now. Things he would, at this point in time, give his beard for. Sleep. Perchance dream. Preferably anything but this inevitable hot mess.

“And you felt the need to tell me about this now?” he growled, “On a Saturday morning when I haven’t seen my fiancée in three weeks?”

“We slept together.”

“Great,” groaned Nikandros, whose mind was thankfully too tired to conjure up any images he’d rather not have stuck in his head. At least almost. Nope, there they were.

“But we didn’t _sleep_ together,” continued Damen, evidently frustrated. It would serve him right, if he were not bothering Nikandros with it.

“You’re not making any sense.”

Damen didn’t speak for a moment and Nikandros seriously considered just hanging up.

“He kicked me out,” he heard eventually.

Were they having this conversation at a less god-awful time, Nikandros would have laughed at him. Unfortunately, he knew enough details about his best friend’s sex life to know this had _never_ happened to Damen before. It was probably where these delusions about being in love came from.

“That’s why you’re calling?” He pressed the crook of his arm into his eyes to keep the damn light out.

“It was that or ask Jokaste. For help, not for a hook-up.”

Alright, fine. In light of this, waking Nikandros had been the better call. Certainly the one less likely to cause permanent damage to anyone except his poor tormented, painfully dying brain cells.

“You’re pouting because your neighbor made you do the walk of shame all the way across the hallway.”

“I’m not pouting, I’m-… concerned.”

Nikandros was concerned as well. About Damen’s mental health. _Just walk away and be done with it and you’ll spare yourself a wealth of pain_ , he wanted to say, but unfortunately, Damen tended to be stubborn about the people he recklessly gave his overly large heart to.

“Maybe you just aren’t up to his standards,” he said instead, resigning himself to a longer conversation. “He does seem high-maintenance.” Which was a most kind understatement.

Damen scoffed, finally reclaiming some of his usual arrogance about his sexual prowess.

“Believe me, that’s not what happened.”

Nikandros probably shouldn’t have rolled his eyes. Mixed with the very unwelcome rays of sun, it just aggravated his headache.

But halfway through regretting that course of action, and wishing he could just pull the damn blanket over his head, Damen faltered.

Damen, king of unasked-for details about sexual exploits, went quiet and uncertain.

“Or at least, I hope it didn’t. I mean, it was definitely good for him, but also-… he sometimes-…”

He stopped speaking.

Then, “I can’t talk to you about this.”

And ended the call.

Nikandros blinked at the dead phone for a few long, wretched, sun-drenched moments longer.

* * *

Damen’s fondness of his job was perhaps greater than that of the usual mortgage-payer, but even for him it was rare to actively _miss it_ on a week-end.

There was just… not a lot to do, at the moment. He had woken up, been unable to fall back asleep, fruitlessly called Nikandros, gone for a run, lifted some weights, had a light breakfast, tried to read, lifted some heavier weights, tried to read again, and wondered under which pretense he could afford to knock on Laurent’s door and how far he’d have to go through the day before he could conceivably do so.

Eventually, he went on another run.

He did not like having left Laurent last night.

It was not the way he operated in general; even one-night stands were usually at least treated to breakfast. Jokaste – during their post-break-up hook-up – was pretty much the only one he’d not insisted stay the night. But this was only because he knew she would be fine, and their history was too complicated to include the re-establishment of domestic routines.

Laurent was not a one-night-stand.

In addition to any feelings Damen personally was developing and all too happy to acknowledge, leaving him alone had not felt right; for the simple reason that Damen had never gone to bed with anyone half as conflicted about it.

Damen could not make sense of it, but he would have felt significantly better about an experience that had felt so sacred it should be untouchable, had he been allowed to hold Laurent on his tiny bed, and kiss him awake, and smile at him over shared breakfast in the morning.

Laurent had asked him to leave.

It had been the second time now, that Damen had complied against his better knowledge.

It should have been a good morning. They should have spent it together. Instead, Damen was over-exerting his muscles in far less fun ways just to keep from barging in on Laurent to ask him if he was alright.   

The only reason he could stop himself from doing so now was that while Damen had needed closeness, everything he knew about Laurent pointed to him needing space. To go over what had happened and bring it into accordance with whatever made it so complicated for him, to assess and reassess. And hopefully come out the other side wishing to keep Damen in his life.

But he had said Damen could call. So Damen, at least, probably hadn’t done anything wrong.

_‘If you-…’_ Laurent had begun. What had he been meaning to say? If what? Under which conditions could Damen contact him? And why had he not finished the thought?

Because it made him vulnerable. It exposed him further when he was already grappling with something that clearly had him nervous and irritable and desperate.

_‘If you-…’_

Whatever sexual experiences Laurent had made in the past – and that there had been some had become fairly obvious – had not ended well for him.

_‘If you-…’_ what?

Maybe, just maybe, Laurent’s own need for privacy had not been the only reason he had shut the door behind Damen.

_‘You may call me.’_ Phrased in a way that left the next step entirely up to Damen. Why? Because he didn’t know what it was?

Damen ran harder. He was panting with the exertion, the doubling of his usual regime taking its toll, but not in an unpleasant way. When he had woken, his body had felt languid and sated, despite lacking his bed-partner’s presence for the rest of the night. Now, he needed to push it to its limits.

_‘If you-…’_

Now, his muscles were burning, his lungs expanded beyond even their usual reach. He could probably do another circuit at least.

_‘If you still want me, after this.’_

Damen stopped short.

* * *

Mercifully, with a painful realization came a plan of action.

He made a detour to a supermarket and came back home with overflowing bags that would yield sweet abundance. 

There were different reasons for Damen’s sometimes excessive baking, but today it was going to be nothing more nor less than an excuse to see Laurent.

He took another quick shower and then laid everything out. He had gotten his hands on excellent organic produce, enough for three different pies, but what he wanted to use first was the apples. Laurent would probably tease him for being sentimental, but it might make his lips twitch and his eyes light up and his fears dissipate if Damen knocked on his door with the same pie he had made for Laurent twice already.

As Damen tied his apron, though, a different scene took its place. Something sweeter than a mere gift, and a greater reassurance of affection. It was-… a very nice scenario.

Damen pulled out a mixing bowl and two spoons and set it all on the kitchen counter. Then, he went across the hallway and knocked.

His heart beat faster when he heard shuffling on the other side.

Clenched painfully when despite this, the door was not opened.

Perhaps he had misjudged. Perhaps it _had_ been a dismissal. Perhaps Laurent was the one who was done with him now.

He knocked one more time.

And the door was violently yanked open.

Damen’s eyes, which had expected someone of Laurent’s height – well, Laurent, really – dropped a few startled inches.  

“Who the fuck are you?”

Damen could ask the same thing, but given the boy’s age, it would probably be inappropriate to excessively swear in front of him.

“Uhm, I’m Damen. Laurent’s neighbor. Is he home?”

“What do you want from him?” Honestly, this kid could give Laurent lessons in suspicion. He looked like he was considering slamming the door in Damen’s face.

“Is he home?” Damen repeated. This wholly unexpected exchange had not lasted very long, but he had felt on edge even before it.

He did not feel like launching into a longer discussion of his relationship with Laurent with some twelve-year-old. For starters, it was probably too early to give it that name, given they had not discussed it. For seconds, saying, ‘I’m the neighbor who accidentally called his phone sex line and is now tentatively dating him; also we had sex last night and I’m here to invite him to bake a pie with me’ would probably not go over too well.

“Who’s at the door?” called Laurent’s voice, distorted through the bathroom door. It was a small mercy that he was home at least.

“Some beefy dude who wants to bang you.”

Damen sputtered.

“Oh, him,” said Laurent, still in the bathroom. “Let him in.”

“I can hear you,” Damen said, loudly.

“I really hope you can, we’re not whispering,” said the kid with a haughty raise of an eyebrow that could give even Laurent a run for his money.

They were similar, Damen, noted. In mannerism, if not necessarily in looks.

“What do you want, Damianos?” said Laurent, at last making an appearance. He looked calm, but his face was unreadable. He looked as unapproachable as ever, back in his severe suit. If not for the upper edge of a dark bruise peeking out from the top of his collar, it would have been easy to dismiss the last night as a particularly fevered dream.   

“I wanted to ask if you’d like to help me with the pie I’m making,” Damen said, and quickly looked away from the physical evidence of their love-making and the sense-memory that came with it.

Instead, he darted his gaze between Laurent and the surprise pre-teen.

There were some visual correspondences, such as a fine bone structure underneath a subtle layer of remaining baby fat that probably made the kid look younger than he was. Not close enough a match to hint at actually being related. Their colouring was not quite the same, and the shape of the kid’s eyes were different from Laurent’s, framed by dark lashes that went with his brown hair. The shade of blue was not the same either, but the expression had a familiar glint of frosty danger.

“I don’t want to help make stupid pie,” huffed the kid, as if in answer.

“Yes, you’ll just eat it once it’s done,” said Laurent, with something as close to the open exasperation one might show towards a sibling. He sounded… unfamiliarly fond. “And you weren’t invited.”

“Oh, he’s welcome to join us,” Damen quickly clarified. It had not been his plan to entertain a twelve-year-old, but clearly, this was someone important to Laurent. Even if their relationship was unspecified so far.

“Ew,” said the kid, with the appropriate amount of distaste. “Whoring me out now, are you?”

For a moment, Damen was not sure he had heard that right. But whoever this alarming child was, he was looking Damen up and down as if to show that despite this ludicrous comment, he was not afraid.

“What the hell,” Damen said, now looking exclusively at Laurent, who had stiffened. 

“You should leave, Damianos.”

Mind reeling, Damen thought that perhaps he should.

He nodded. “Feel free to change your mind. Both of you.”

They looked as though they were both carved from different parts of the same block of ice. Damen turned around and went back to his own apartment.

* * *

He had barely gotten started on measuring out the sugar for the dough when there was a knock on his door. Simple, concise; Laurent’s knock.

With a small measure of apprehension, Damen opened.

“Nicaise really would like some pie,” said Laurent. His eyes were a challenge, as if daring Damen to react negatively to the kid’s presence. He – Nicaise, apparently – was standing next to Laurent, scowling.

Laurent had changed into the big sweater he’d worn when he had infiltrated Damen’s company under the guise of a French intern. He looked far more relaxed than before. His neck was visible all the way down to his collarbone.

Damen took a deep breath and focused on the fact that they were not alone.

“Of course,” said Damen, because that was what he had offered. “You might have to share an apron, though.”

“I’m not baking, you imbecile,” huffed Nicaise, and strolled past Damen without an invite. “I’m here because Laurent told me I was cockblocking him. Though I don’t know what me being here could possibly help if you don’t want me actually involved. Well, I suppose I could watch.”

“Those were not the words I used,” said Laurent, calmly, if with a frown. “Behave or you’re not getting any pie.”

He, too, casually walked into Damen’s apartment now. His eyes were trained on Nicaise, utterly ignoring Damen after that first acknowledgement. But as he passed, Damen felt the brief brush of fingers against his arm, gone again before he had a chance to react. Had Laurent been anyone else, it might have been coincidence. As it was Laurent, the purpose was clear.

Damen breathed out.

“This apartment isn’t any bigger than Laurent’s,” scoffed Nicaise, loudly. “What are you people, poor?”

Damen shut the door. He had the very odd feeling of being a guest in his own home.

_Laurent is here_ , he reminded himself. _Laurent is here and he is okay._

* * *

Three minutes later, Laurent wearing Damen’s spare apron was a sight to behold. Damen hardly dared look.

At first Laurent had nearly seemed to drown in it, but a quick adjustment of the knots and folds of it had it fitting respectably. Quick, because the wonderful intimacy of Laurent holding his hair aside for Damen to re-knot the string at the nape of his neck was made awkward by a scowling pre-teen pointedly staring at them.

“We’re not actually going to start fucking in front of you,” Laurent had said, unperturbed by the crassness of his own statement, and Damen had stepped back with even more haste, apparently the only person in the room aware of how inappropriate all of this was.

Nicaise sniffed, a strangely child-like gesture considering his next words. “Why not? You both obviously want to.”

“Because-…” sputtered Damen, but Laurent helpful interrupted before he had to figure out what to say.

“Because it has not been very long since last night,” said Laurent, and Damen turned an incredulous stare at him. “We can wait a few hours.”

“You maybe. I don’t think _he_ can.” It was said with a disparaging notion towards Damen, as if he were a particularly distasteful lump of meat.

“I very well can,” exclaimed Damen, red-faced, as soon as he’d found his voice again. Why he was even joining in this absurd conversation was beyond him.

Unimpressed by Damen’s interjection (and possibly by Damen in general), Nicaise looked him up and down – an ostentatious show of indifference – and then asked Laurent, “How are you even walking today? Dick not measuring up to the rest of him?”

Damen was pretty sure his jaw had hit the floor, but Laurent still did nothing but calmly answer the question.

“Quite in proportion. I kicked him out after the first time.”

This had to be the strangest, most uncomfortable morning-after conversation Damen had ever experienced. For starters, he apparently wasn’t even part of it. 

“Why, that bad?” jeered the horrible child, as though expecting nothing else.

“No,” said Laurent. “That _good_.”

This would have been a very reassuring thing to hear, had it been at all directed at Damen. But Laurent was still entirely focused on Nicaise, regarding him calmly.

There was something in that eye-contact that Damen could not grasp, as though Laurent was communicating something very important. Whatever it was, Nicaise looked away first, with narrowed eyes and a strangely contemplative expression. 

“Can we just bake now?” Damen finally spoke up, and two pairs of blue eyes bore into him.

“Show me how,” said Laurent, at last.

* * *

It was not how Damen had pictured this going.

Obviously, there had been no fully-formed idea of how the afternoon might have proceeded without the unexpected addition of an extremely problematic twelve-year-old of unspecified relation to Laurent, but it definitely would not have been this.

Nicaise, after going through all of Damen’s drawers and knocking over a few things like an irritable cat, had sat down on top of the kitchen table and was watching Laurent and Damen in the most obnoxious manner possible. His legs swung back and forth much like a child’s would, but as he took great pains to kick Damen in the shin whenever he came close enough, it held none of that innocence.

Laurent seemed unbothered. Light, even. He spent a careful and likely deliberate half of his time acknowledging Nicaise and half ignoring him in favor of focusing his entire, breath-taking attention on Damen.

“Make yourself useful and remove the stems and pits,” he said and put a bowl filled with fresh cherries next to Nicaise. “And don’t eat the cherries.”

Nicaise sprawled out on his side on the table and groaned loudly. “Ugh, why?”

“There won’t be any filling without cherries.”

To Damen’s surprise, Nicaise actually did start doing something. He tried to remember if the kid had washed his hands and then figured he’d just wash the cherries extra thoroughly.

The unexpected guest sufficiently distracted, Laurent continued quizzing Damen about what type of flour he was using, all the while darting glances between some point left of Damen’s mouth and Damen’s hands kneading the dough.

There was a very charming beginning of a blush on his cheeks, but more than that, he looked younger than Damen had experienced him yet, his smile almost shy and without the usual sharp edge.

Damen honestly had a hard time breathing just looking at him.

_This_ was what he’d wanted.

That was when he felt the first ping against the back of his head. Not thinking much of it, he continued kneading the dough.

And then the next came.  

It would seem Nicaise could not stand being ignored and had started throwing the cherry pits at Damen now that Laurent faced away from him.

Damen’s glare did little more than almost cost him an eye.

“Hey!” he exclaimed, ducking, “Would you-”

The next pit – fast-flying, thrown with deadly aim and without mercy – got snatched out of the air right before Damen’s nose. Laurent held it up and contemplated it for a moment, before turning to Damen with a most serious expression and eyes twinkling so much Damen’s poor heart stuttered.

“Yes, Damen, where should we put the waste?”

Damen wordlessly fetched a bowl. He plucked it down onto the table next to a miffed-looking Nicaise. Then he took Laurent’s hand and quite tonelessly said, “Oh, we forgot the baking soda,” while pulling Laurent just behind the thin half wall separating kitchen and living room.

Laurent went so easily he might as well have been the one doing the leading. Laurent did not object to being crowded against that wall. Laurent absolutely reciprocated when Damen took his face between his hands and kissed him.

* * *

All in all, it was a rather strange arrangement, but it worked well enough until Laurent excused himself to the bathroom.

As soon as he’d closed the door behind himself, Nicaise turned his cold glare on Damen.

“What do you want from Laurent?”

It could have easily been interpreted as jealousy. Perhaps, in a way, it was; but more than anything Nicaise reminded Damen of a younger sibling at this moment, who was not used to sharing his brother’s attention with anyone.

Whatever he chose to answer would undoubtedly be the wrong thing to say.

“I am not taking him away from you,” he settled on, meaning to calm this strange sharp boy enough for him not to actively sabotage them.

Instead, Nicaise sneered.

“As if I even want to spend time with him. His uncle is making me.”

“I didn’t know he had an uncle.”

Nicaise regarded him for a long, cool moment. Damen desperately hoped Laurent would return soon.

Finally, Nicaise drawled, “I’ll blow you if you leave him alone.”

Damen could only blink.

“We won’t tell him,” continued Nicaise, as if it were decided. He didn’t look particularly interested in what he was saying, even as he planned further while Damen’s mind was still scrambling to catch up. “He can think you’ve just lost interest. I’ll make you lose interest; I’m better than he is.” He sniffed, looking for all intents and purposes _bored_. “Probably.”

Damen finally found his voice. He sounded easily as horrified as he felt. “Why the hell would I want that? You’re a child!”

Nicaise turned eyes on him that burned with open dislike.

“Isn’t that the point? It’s more fun that way.”

“No!” he exclaimed, both unable and extremely unwilling to hide his disgust, “No, I don’t want that! Who would?”

_What kind of monster would?_

Nicaise kept looking at him. He no longer looked bored. He looked dangerous.

“Fine,” he finally spit out. “Your loss. I didn’t want your limp dick anyway.”

Laurent chose that moment to leave the bathroom.

* * *

It took a long time until Damen could ask.

There were the last steps of actual baking, from which Nicaise remained sulkily absent. He did not go out of hearing range, likely plotting something or other, possibly the downfall of a nation. Maybe just watching over Laurent in his highly disturbing way.

Ignoring him, the scene took a strangely domestic turn. Laurent insisted on doing most of the work from now on, evidently meaning to learn from this enough to surpass Damen’s own baking skills. He had clearly never done it before and deferred to Damen’s instructions, which he followed meticulously, if with some frustration.

(“How can you not know how much cinnamon to put in there?” Laurent asked, staring at the beautiful bowl of meshed fruit as though it held all the secrets of the universe but refused to divulge them.

“Just go with what feels right,” Damen shrugged.

Laurent looked up, disbelieving.

“How,” he said, “would I know,” he said, “what feels right?”

“Just a dash, maybe? Yeah, no, more than that. I don’t know, _try it_.”  

Laurent, rather than do so himself, held out a spoonful of filling to Damen.

His lips had already wrapped around it by the time he understood the significance.

It had not been so long since Laurent had followed him into his kitchen, so stiff as if it were his first human interaction in a lifetime. It would appear since then, Damen had been forgiven for mindlessly leaning in to kiss him.

He had been forgiven quite thoroughly.

Damen was smiling by the time Laurent pulled the spoon back out of his mouth.

“It’s great,” he said with a grin. And then, “Oh no, actually, it’s not. You need to put in way more of that.”)  

When the pies were actually in the oven, Damen had the singularly great idea to bring out a strategic board game that almost turned to an all-out shouting match.

Laurent, being a natural master tactician, would have out-maneuvered them both easily, had Damen not been playing this game practically since birth, and had Nicaise not so obviously _cheated_.

(“Oh for- You had one camp in the Vaskian mountains, Nicaise, not three,” exclaimed Damen, who could barely suppress banging his fist on the table for emphasis like his father might have.

“I’ve had these camps for the past three turns!”, yelled Nicaise, outraged, “Are you going fucking senile?”

“Well, it doesn’t matter,” said Laurent coolly, “I’m ambushing your ambush.”

A pause.

“WHAT???”)

Then there was the merciful interruption of the timer going off. Damen discretely put the game away and set the table while Laurent concentrated entirely on taking the pies out of the oven, and then out of the tin, with Nicaise hovering nearby like he was considering tripping him.

His hunger seemed to win out though, and all he did to aggravate the situation was viciously stab at one slice after another. At least he actually _ate_ the pie.

So did Laurent, with clear if suppressed relish.

Halfway through his own second piece, Damen started when he felt a hand on his thigh. A quick look down had him relaxing marginally; it was Laurent’s. Unexpected as it was, it wasn’t a sexual gesture. In fact, with the way Laurent kept his eyes carefully trained on his own slice of pie, which he was eating one-handedly now, it seemed he was rather unsure about it himself. The touch was very light, clearly ready to retreat at any moment.

Damen, with a surge of happiness, switched his fork over to the other side and slid his fingers between Laurent’s.  

And then he started again when something else happened to his other thigh.

Laurent let go of his hand to get Nicaise another fork.

Not quite knowing what to do now, Damen finished his plate. When they were all finished, he did not get up to do the dishes, and instead – as a last resort and good example of bad parenting – said, “By the way, I have Mario Kart.”

Nicaise scoffed, and said, “I don’t care,” but ambled over to the screen in the living room anyway. He ignored the game console, but turned on the tv, and began flipping through the channels and complaining loudly about the lack of quality.

“Laurent,” murmured Damen _finally_ , “why did I get propositioned by a child?”

* * *

Laurent gave him a long look. His face had returned to perfect impassivity and he had not taken Damen’s hand again.

“He’s fourteen,” he said eventually. “He’s hardly a child.”

“He _is_ a child,” Damen insisted, for once without the patience to go with whatever Laurent’s game in this was. “And he was quite explicit.”

“What did he say to you?” said Laurent, leaning back. His expression betrayed absolutely nothing, but Damen did note the complete lack of surprise at the turn of topic.

“I would rather not repeat it; it was inappropriate and disturbing.”

Laurent cocked his head. There was a very strange smile in the corner of his mouth that for some reason hurt to look at. “You weren’t tempted? He can be quite convincing, I hear.”

Damen breathed in deeply. It was difficult to keep his voice low.

“What kind of monster would want a sexual relationship with a child? I know _you_ don’t.”

“I?” For a moment, Laurent looked almost amused. “Hardly.” It wasn’t the kind of amusement that implicated he actually thought the subject funny. “He does what he’s used to,” he went on, “and he doesn’t take rejection lightly. He stabbed you under the table, didn’t he?”

“That’s not relevant,” said Damen, flushing. The fork was still quite deep inside his thigh. He should be grateful the kid had not aimed elsewhere.

“With a fork,” continued Laurent, undeterred. There was something like delight glinting in his eyes now, and Damen _should seriously consider going for a different type of person_. “It’s why he asked for a new one. When did you pull it out?”

“I haven’t, yet,” said Damen, desperate to wave the issue aside. “It doesn’t hurt much. What happened to him?”

The last trace of humor faded from Laurent’s eyes, leaving them cold and sober and blue.

“What hasn’t?” he said, so quietly Damen almost didn’t catch his words. “He’s doing the best he can, given his circumstances. And I appreciate you asking, but this is not the time for this conversation, Damianos.”

His eyes turned wistful as they landed back on Nicaise, who seemed to have found one channel not entirely worth his open disgust. Sitting in front of the flickering screen now, he for once almost looked like a normal kid.

“Look at him,” Laurent said, his voice barely above a whisper. “He’s having fun. He’s been having fun all afternoon.”

Damen, who really should pull the fork out at some point, did not entirely agree with this definition of fun and watched Laurent rather than Nicaise. It was an unusually fond look he was giving the kid.

“He’s been performing for most of it, but I think he’s starting to understand I would still neither pose a threat to him nor allow anyone dangerous near him if he stopped. That’s all I can give him right now.”

He looked back at Damen and sighed.  

“Despite what you might think, you did good today. He doesn’t particularly like you for it, but he’s relieved you so categorically dismissed his advances.”

Damen had the sudden thought that Laurent may not actually have needed to use the bathroom. That he’d stood behind the door, listening. Ready to interfere, should he need to.

“It makes you safe,” Laurent continued. Damen could see that much being true at least and gave Laurent a slow nod.

“Though of course, I would not have brought him near you had I expected you to react differently.”

It was said with a rather softer look, and Damen nodded again. He could not speak; it felt as though something large and foreign were blocking his voice.

“There are some things,” said Laurent, suddenly and earnestly, “that are hard to unlearn for a child like him.” He had laid his hand over Damen’s as if he wasn’t entirely sure if he was doing it right. “And other things are harder still to learn.” A little squeeze of Damen’s hand, fleeting, barely there, then retracted before Damen had the chance to reciprocate. “But he’s clever and resilient and he has good instincts. I would like to believe there is hope for him.”

“You’re trying to help him.” Damen nodded once more, this time in genuine comprehension.

“I’m trying,” said Laurent, “to adopt him.”

* * *

Laurent – as a matter of principle – did not speak without purpose. His words were never without premeditation, and never remained unreflected afterwards.

Damen, in contrast, said what came to his mind in the moment, and later dealt with the consequences. He wasn’t without cleverness and certainly not without the capability to very cautiously form sentiments, but this was only when he was conscious of what he was saying.

He was clearly conscious now, because he did not speak at all.

It was obvious he did not particularly like Nicaise. His early politeness and friendly demeanor so uncharacteristically thrown back at him, not to mention the defensive if not outright aggressive way Nicaise behaved, he was at a loss.

“Nicaise said you had an uncle,” was what Damen said, in the end, and Laurent almost laughed at the fact that _this_ was what his beautifully naïve neighbor thought the most neutral comment to make. “That your uncle was making him spend time with you. What is their relationship?”

Though perhaps, of course, it was not neutral at all. Perhaps Damianos was beginning to feel a suspicion towards the benefactor who had bailed out his ailing company.

If there was one thing Laurent had no wish to discuss at the moment, it was his uncle. Not after how hard he’d worked to eliminate him last night. Not just before having to bring Nicaise back to that place.

And yet.

“Nicaise is his most recent foster child,” said Laurent and left it at that.

Damen nodded, seemingly deep in thought. “That’s kind of him,” he said.

“It’s not,” said Laurent and watched with detached fascination as the point flew right over Damen’s head. 

“Oh,” Damen said, and frowned at Laurent. “You’re not close?”

Laurent felt the gold retreat into the hollow of his chest and forbid it. He looked straight at Damianos and held on. 

“Not since I turned 15.”

Damen held his gaze, gravely. His eyes were dark and lovely, and his brown cheek was lightly smeared with the same remnants of buttery sweet dough that were likely on Laurent’s own. He had kissed Laurent earlier. He had sought Laurent out after whatever deal he likely had with Laurent’s uncle had been fulfilled many times over. He had not fucked like it was part of a deal.

He had meant to stay.

Laurent pushed everything else aside and allowed Damen to cradle his face in his large, warm palm. Turned into it, even.

“It explains a lot,” Damen stated, with a tone of soft distress that did things to Laurent that were best left unexplored.

“Does it,” said Laurent quietly, and kept holding on.

“All of this-… I never understood before why all of this has been so difficult for you.”

_I just told you._

“But there hasn’t been anyone else since then, has there?”

Laurent closed his eyes.

“For you to trust.”

Laurent said nothing. He simply sat there, in the darkness of his closed eyelids and focused on Damen’s thumb tracing the line of his cheekbone. On the warmth that spread through his skin where Damen was touching him. In the light of last night, it nurtured a strange feeling inside Laurent; a vague eroticism perhaps, mixed with almost unbearable tenderness.

He bore it.

“You want Nicaise to have someone he can trust,” he heard Damen say, softly.

“I want,” he said, and opened his eyes, “for him to not have to question it when he does.”

It was a view he could have had this morning. They could have been lying side by side. Damen might have had his arm around Laurent’s naked waist, draped there without artifice and without pressure. Laurent could have woken to this and not trembled before the rest of the day. At least not for a little while.

“Whatever you need from me, you have it,” said Damen, earnestly. “For this, or anything else.”

Laurent pulled back. Damen’s hand easily sinking back down onto the table made it the natural conclusion of a small gesture rather than a deliberate severing of physical connection.

“You really should pull that fork out,” said Laurent, over the sound of his own, heavy, foolishly jubilant heart.

* * *

Later, when Laurent was back in his own apartment and half-listening to the many rather amusing ways Nicaise thought Damen was the stupidest man he’d ever met, the extent of his mistake became apparent.

It was not one he would have made had it not been for Damen’s unexpected declaration, which continued taking up as much of his mind as a low thrum of anticipation took up Laurent’s body.

Earlier, Laurent had picked Nicaise up from school. He had actively not been thinking about delivering him back to where he lived. And he had thought they had another hour, at least.

He should have spent less time watching Damen and Nicaise interact and more time readying himself, because he was not ready.

He had not even changed back into an outfit where the clear marks Damen’s mouth had left on him were not on display. There was probably some flour on him when he’d never baked before in his life, a drip of filling on his pants. Perhaps some dough crusted in the fine hairs next to his ear even, where Damen had held his face in his hands to kiss him.

He should have had time, but it did not excuse how negligent he had been about preparing himself.

And when the knock came, his stupid heart expected this visitor to be Damen, back for some flimsy reason that might include sneaking another kiss.   

Standing in his door was Laurent’s uncle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: All the trigger warnings. 
> 
> I had a lot more about why Laurent and Nicaise act the way they do in this chapter, but after seven different re-writes, it still simply didn't work to have them explain it. I decided to pull a Pacat instead and let their actions and words speak for themselves. If anything desperately needs clarification, feel free to ask and I'll try to work it into one of the following chapters.
> 
> Again, I need to reiterate that I'm not an abuse victim myself, so please tell me if you think I'm handling this storyline in an insensitive or patronizing manner.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I am not kidding when I'm saying the following chapter contains very many things that can be triggering. The Regent is in it, as is Laurent, as is Nicaise. It does not contain graphic descriptions of sexual abuse, but there is unwanted touching, violation of private space, and clear implications of what Nicaise is still in the middle of. 
> 
> I can't say it's the darkest place this story will go to, but it's definitely the worst it's been. I had no intention to ever have the Regent show up as an actual character in this, but it has become necessary and won't be the last time. I realize this is not what most of you signed up for when you started reading this. It is safe to say it wasn't what I was going to write either, but as this story unfolds, it demands to be told this way. 
> 
> If the tone of this story has changed too much for you, I would just like to say thank you for reading so far. It has been a pleasure and an honour writing for you. :)
> 
> And if you're willing to hang in there, I can definitely promise not every chapter will be as angsty and difficult as this one. 
> 
> Please be very careful when reading and if you feel like the most severely triggering content might be too much for you, feel free to skip the first scene entirely. I kept it short. The rest of it still contains Laurent in a bad headspace, but it's firmly in hurt/comfort territory.

“I thought I was to deliver Nicaise back to you,” Laurent said, clipped. “As always.”

“Oh yes, that was the plan,” said his uncle, gamely. “However, I realized I’d never visited you since you moved.”

He stepped through the door without asking. Laurent moved back on instinct.

Blocking his path would not have made a difference anyway; he had no authority on which to exclude his uncle from his home.

“I do need to make sure my beloved nephew is living comfortably on my money.”

“My money,” said Laurent flatly, “soon.”

“Oh yes, of course.” He waved the thought away dismissively. “It is your inheritance.”

He laid his hand on Auguste’s desk and Laurent’s pulse dropped so fast he felt almost faint. He kept it there as he turned to Nicaise.

“Hello again, my dear.”

“Ugh, it’s you,” drawled Nicaise, with an exaggeratedly annoyed flutter of his eyelashes.

As short as Laurent kept his interactions while getting Nicaise from his uncle’s house and dropping him off there again, he’d seen enough.

The air of disinterested seduction Nicaise affected whenever he was near Laurent’s uncle. The coy touches, all too eagerly reciprocated by the person who for all intents and purposes owned him.

Laurent did not want to witness this in his own home.

“I bought you something nice, Nicaise,” said his uncle, in light admonishment.

“What is it?” asked Nicaise, as though still deciding whether this conversation was even worth his time. He was stretching on the couch.

Laurent kept his fists from clenching on sheer force of will.

“It’s a surprise,” said Laurent’s uncle, now moving unerringly into Laurent’s bedroom.

_No._

“I hate surprises,” Nicaise complained.

“It’s very nice. You’ll like it. You can ask Laurent. He liked it very much.”

_No._

Laurent was shaking. He needed to stop shaking.

From where he was standing, he could see his uncle run his hand over Laurent’s bed.

_NO_

“What’s taking you so long, then? Can we go already?” said Nicaise, after a single look at Laurent.

_Get it together._

Laurent closed his eyes and forced a shallow breath into his aching lungs.

Stood up straight.

Kept his muscles still and his face indifferent, even as his uncle stepped too near. He laid a hand on Laurent’s shoulder and Laurent bore it without so much as a flinch. Without letting the remains of desperately fought instinct make him go pliant underneath.

His uncle was very ostentatiously looking at Laurent’s neck.

“How are the neighbors treating you?”

Laurent half-expected Nicaise to make a comment about Damen, but instead he whined from the front door, “Can we go already? I’m _hungry_.” As if he hadn’t eaten four slices of pie.

As if it made a difference whether Nicaise ratted him out when Laurent’s uncle so clearly knew what he wasn’t saying.

Laurent had not had any illusions about the nature of his uncle’s donations to Akielos Publishing, and therefore, he almost didn’t feel it when the last desperate hope for a coincidence was choked out.

“It’s better than previous living situations,” said Laurent evenly. Focused everything he was into neither leaning into the familiarity of the gesture nor shrugging it off. Into not letting this become another memory he had to relive over and over to negate its power.

“Oh Laurent,” said his uncle, shaking his head. “I really wish I could have succeeded in teaching you to be more grateful. Truly, I don’t understand what happened to you. You were such a lovely boy.”

It was too easy to fall into the role he’d been trained to play. Into the docile, passive little boy he’d been groomed into. Desperate for attention, even when he began to realize it was not the kind he would never be able to tell anyone about. Devastated when it was replaced by rejection.

“I am grateful,” said Laurent, holding on to something that, despite all of this, was _his_ now. “My neighbors are most kind.”

He felt sick.

Damen had touched him on this shoulder at Laurent’s behest. Damen had touched him everywhere. Damen had taken him in a way that had been a revelation on every level.  

The hand on his shoulder did not go away.

The memories were once more being overwritten by his uncle.

 _Stop touching me,_ he thought suddenly, and more vehemently than ever before.

He should have prepared for this rather than letting himself get swept up in something good and simple and sweet.

_Stop touching me. This body is not yours._

“Oh, Laurent. I taught you better than this.”

_I am too pale I can’t breathe he can see that I need this to stop he can see_

He was showing weakness, he realized dimly, as he tried to keep himself standing.

He had never responded so badly to his uncle’s touch before.

It was all he had known, before.

Not now.

_Stop touching me. Never touch me. Never touch me again._

“Did you not hear me? I said I was hungry,” snapped Nicaise, from the door.

_Never touch Nicaise again, either._

His uncle let go, shaking his head in his usual adaptation of benevolent disapproval.

“We’ll have a lovely meal, my dear boy. At home.”

And put his hand on Nicaise’s shoulder instead as he led him away.  

* * *

For the second time that day, Laurent knocked on his door.

Damen, who was in the process of putting a band-aid over where the fork had pierced skin and muscle, almost missed it. In the shower, it had started bleeding again, and while the pain was hardly worth mentioning, he didn’t want to end up with blood on his sheets.

As such, even when the knocks registered, Damen still had to throw on some clothes. As much as the thought of Laurent blushing prettily at the sight of him, wet and clad only in a towel (he really had to get away from editing romance novels), amused and appealed to him, he did not wish to risk exposing Nicaise to such inappropriate attire. Who even knew how he would react.

It was a testament to how upset Laurent was that he was still standing in front of the door when Damen finally threw it open.

That he was upset could not be doubted. It was almost a mirror of how he’d stood when calling on Damen in the middle of the night, except it was made worse by the fact that as still as he was holding himself, he was trembling, and that just half an hour ago, Damen had seen him smiling and relaxed.

“Laurent,” he began, alarmed, but Laurent cut him off.

“This is not a booty call. You will not touch me. I need to not be in my apartment.”

“Come in,” said Damen, and stiffly, Laurent did. He looked like he could barely keep himself standing. Damen made sure to step back enough that there was no risk of them accidentally brushing up against each other when Laurent passed.

He did not sit down. Just stood, in the middle of Damen’s apartment, swaying.

“What can I do?” said Damen, and gently closed the door.

“Be…” said Laurent, as if against a great strain, “ _you_.”

“I think I can do that. Would you like to sit down?”

“No. Yes.”

Laurent pulled the chair out. He remained standing, knuckles white from how hard he was gripping the back of it.

“I’m going to make you some tea, okay?”

Laurent nodded sharply. Then, “Not here. Make it at my apartment.”

Damen, who just moments before had been told Laurent could not stand to be in his apartment, quite carefully asked, “Do you have tea at your place or would you like me to bring some of mine?”

“Bring yours. Whichever you deem best.”

He pushed himself away from the chair and stalked over to the door, which he opened, but did not walk through without Damen.

Damen quickly grabbed a bag of tea and his keys. 

* * *

Inside his kitchen, Laurent gave no more instructions than necessary. He barely had it in himself to speak at all.

Damen, although only having been in this room once, did not require much more than the location of the teapot and kettle to get started on the tea. If Laurent were any less tense, he might have found it soothing to watch this giant man carefully handle tiny cups.

“I brought mountain tea,” he was saying, and Laurent gratefully listened. “From Crete. I try to always keep a good stock of it, but it never seems to last me long.”

He poured the boiled water over open leaves.

“What is in it?” asked Laurent, and watched the water expand the previously dried plant. Small golden flowers unfurled into a deceptively life-like state under rising steam. As if in bloom, when truly, they were dead.

“Just the one plant. Sideritis,” said Damen. It was pleasant to hear him speak in his native tongue, however shortly. “Iron wort. It’s an herb that grows in most of Greece. We know it as a traditional tea, likely consumed since ancient times.”

“It smells good.”

Damen smiled softly at him, and the nature of Laurent’s bone-deep ache changed. He wondered how much of him could fill with gold when there was so little space left underneath the taint. He still felt his uncle’s hand on his shoulder. He still remembered other things. He was very aware of what was happening to Nicaise as Laurent sat in a kitchen with a kind-hearted, handsome man who respected his wishes.

“It tastes even better,” said Damen. “Let it cool a little. Traditionally, we offer fresh cheeses and sweet breads with it.”

“I don’t have either here,” Laurent deliberated. Truly, if he was to start entertaining guests, he should consider stocking up his pantry. Or throw out his guests before such situations arose. The latter was much wiser, but he made note of it anyway.

“There might be some cheese left in my fridge,” said Damen. “It’s not as light, but it is very good. Hearty.”

The offer was clear.

“No,” said Laurent. “Stay. For now.”

“Okay.” Damen remained leaning against one of Laurent’s drawers. He fit in well here, as he seemed to do everywhere.

Laurent wished he had even half the easy command and steady presence Damen so unthinkingly radiated.

He wished he could have stopped himself from losing his composure so completely.

He wished he could imagine Damen touching him right now, in the same easy way he had earlier, when they’d said goodbye at Damen’s door.

“I’ve started reading the book you gave me,” Laurent said, for once with no other agenda than to keep himself sane.

“Oh?” Damen perked up and somewhat failed at playing it cool pouring the tea into Laurent’s cups. “What do you think of it so far?”

Laurent’s cup was filled first, the tea clear and golden. Laurent watched Damen’s hands almost more than the cup. The surety with which he held the teapot. How little he seemed to be bothered by the heat seeping through the ceramic.

“You said it was hopeful.”

Damen poured his own cup, then put the teapot back down.

“I also said it was sad.”

“It makes me feel too much,” said Laurent, quietly.

Damen put the cup before Laurent, then sat down. At the same table, but far enough away that they did not touch. He didn’t quite look at Laurent; instead his eyes followed his finger, which gently brushed back and forth over the rim of the cup. There was no tension in the way he held himself, but he was very serious when he said, “I won’t hold it against you if you simply put it down and never open it again.”

“I want to be there for the hopeful ending,” Laurent said, with finality.

Damen took a sip of his tea. The gesture couldn’t quite hide his small smile.

Laurent did nothing but breathe in the softly rising steam. His hands had loosely folded around the cup, and he was soaking in the warmth.

“How far are you into the story?” Damen eventually asked, and Laurent told him.

“The worst is almost over. It doesn’t get much darker than that.”

“Good,” said Laurent, and brought the cup to his lips. “Good.”

* * *

“I would like for you to stay,” said Laurent, later. The sun outside had set a while ago, first casting the flat into long shadows that played over Laurent’s fine features, then slowly leaving them in a comfortable dusk. Eventually, when neither of them could pretend any longer not to require some source of light, Laurent got up and to Damen’s surprise brought candles.

“I was thinking of getting candles from my flat, but I didn’t want to-…” _break the moment_ , Damen meant to say and then thought otherwise.

“I rarely use candles now,” said Laurent, rather than tease Damen as he might have expected. “Auguste used to put them up everywhere when I was a child. Even when he told me I’d ruin my eyes reading in candlelight he’d leave the lamps off.”

Auguste, Damen remembered, was his brother.

“I miss him,” said Laurent, now, simply. “You remind me of him.”

It was late now, even the candles burnt low.

They talked, sometimes, and they were quiet, sometimes.

They finished their tea. Damen was hungry, but he didn’t dare ask if he could get anything from his place, lest Laurent remembered himself and took the opportunity to tell him not to come back tonight.

Laurent himself seemed impervious to the needs and workings of his body. Tonight, more than ever, he seemed to exist solely in his head; everything else merely an extension of his indominable mind.

Damen had seen him in many different moods, had experienced him controlled and volatile, playful and deadly, closed off and seductive, warm and sweet and cold and cruel. Beyond himself with pleasure, yesterday.

He was different again tonight.

Contemplative. Quietly sad. More open than he’d ever been with Damen. Whatever had shaken him to near catatonia earlier had left him with some of his defenses down.

“I would like to not be alone, but I can’t have you touch me tonight.”

“I’ll sleep on the floor, then,” said Damen, unquestioning.

Laurent’s eyes focused on him. It seemed the thought had not occurred to him, though he hid his surprise well.

“It’s rude of me to make you,” he said eventually.

“You aren’t making me. I’m offering.”

It felt like redemption for the time when he hadn’t thought to offer this. For when he had closed the door on Laurent’s distressed face rather than staying with him. For last night, even, when he’d followed Laurent’s wishes but had not felt good leaving him alone.

He held Laurent’s gaze with ease.

“I’ll find you some blankets,” Laurent said eventually.

At last, Laurent got up from the table, in a single, graceful slide out of the chair that was already a turn towards the living room. He was not a small man, although the comparison to Damen made him seem it, and the shift and play of his clearly defined muscles and sinews was at all times that of a professional dancer.

Damen remembered him naked and flushed, muscles contracting on his stomach, legs trembling. He pushed the thought away before inappropriate arousal could disturb the careful peace between them. This was not the time.

He used the bathroom. When he came out, he could see Laurent’s silhouette through the bedroom door, laying out a blanket over another. He was making room for Damen, allowing him near when he was vulnerable, to watch over him when he was clearly used to going through these strange emotions alone. Close. It felt more intimate than the sexual acts they’d exchanged mere twenty-four hours ago, and Damen was struck by how complex this moment was, and how easy it could be for him to misstep.

He did not interrupt Laurent as he prepared Damen’s sleeping space, but instead washed their dishes and left them to dry.

“I have a dishwasher,” said Laurent, when he came back to the kitchen. He indicated the device without even a gesture.

“Indeed you have,” said Damen, indicating himself. He was hoping to make Laurent smile, but Laurent did not. Instead, he stepped next to Damen, to a distance that almost tempted touch and pulled out a dishtowel.

“You can undress as far as you’re comfortable,” said Laurent. It was a dismissal as much as it was an answer to an unasked question.

Damen would like, more than anything, to drop a kiss to the exposed crook of Laurent’s neck, but he did not. 

He went to Laurent’s bedroom alone and stripped down to his boxers and a t-shirt. He would sleep in less if he were home, but Laurent had very different reactions to seeing Damen in states of undress and he feared tonight it may not be a good one.

His pail had been prepared efficiently and thoughtfully. There was no pillow, but Laurent appeared to have folded up a towel and laid one of the blankets over the comfortable bump this provided.

Damen avoided looking at the bed. It felt too strange in this situation. There was a glass of water on the bedside table and next to it, another freshly lit candle and the book Damen had given Laurent.

Damen took it up. Laurent did not appear the type to mark his pages, but there was a piece of paper stuck halfway through the story. With an almost uncomfortable flutter in his chest, Damen recognized it was the card he’d sent along with it. Laurent had stopped reading mid-chapter, as though interrupted.

“I need you to change my sheets.”

Damen turned around and saw Laurent standing in the doorway. He had changed his clothes as well.

Everything about this situation should have reminded Damen of last night, but Laurent behaved so differently it almost cancelled out the so recently unleashed desire still humming underneath Damen’s skin.

Laurent had pulled on sweatpants that Damen would not have thought he owned, and a large white t-shirt. His chest rose and fell softly, wrinkling and smoothing it with each exhale and inhale. His hair was combed neatly. He looked very young.

“But you’ve changed them already,” said Damen, mostly to think of anything other than taking Laurent into his arms and feeling his heart beat steadily against his own.

“I cannot sleep in these,” continued Laurent, as if he hadn’t heard. “There is another set in the closet.”

Damen did not understand, but it seemed a question for another day.

Laurent made no move into the room as Damen performed the strangely intimate task of exchanging one set of freshly laundered sheets for another. It involved far less fumbling than Damen was used to. He had not slept in a bed this small since early infancy.

“Do you have a laundry basket?” he asked, picking up the stripped sheets.

“Throw them away,” said Laurent calmly, and when Damen did not react, “Please. I need them gone.”

“Laurent,” Damen said carefully, “these are not the sheets from last night.”

“I am aware. I would not ask you to-…” He looked away. Damen desperately wanted to take his hand.

He waited instead.

Laurent took a long time to formulate his next words, but finally, his eyes went back to Damen’s. They remained there. He spoke softly, but with clarity and decisiveness. “There are no bad memories attached to them. I’ve merely thrown them out for washing.”

The quality of his gaze changed. “The ones you are holding are soiled. I cannot explain to you why.”

Damen did not understand, but he nodded slowly. “Okay.”

When he walked past Laurent to find a garbage can, Laurent stepped back a little.

He very much wanted to ask what had happened after Laurent and Nicaise left his apartment, but did not. He wanted to tell Laurent he could talk to him, but swallowed those words as well. Laurent was not saying much, but he was communicating. He was letting Damen in; he was letting Damen help. He was letting Damen stay.

Damen returned to find Laurent still in the same position, in the small corner between the door and the bookshelf. He was leaning against it. He looked exhausted, yet his eyes, even among the shadows, were open and alert.

Damen, not knowing what else to do, lowered himself onto the floor and his make-shift bed. It was small, hardly what he was used to, but not entirely uncomfortable.

His head was positioned parallel to Laurent’s pillow. Facing the door.

Damen did not watch Laurent slide underneath his sheets, though the sounds were simple and unmistakable and very, very private. A rustling of cloth. The slight movement of the mattress. The settling of a body.

His head spun a little at the thought that approximately at the same time last night, Daman had had his mouth on Laurent’s body. It seemed unthinkable, at the moment.

“Read to me,” said Laurent, after some time. He had not doused the lights.

With some trepidation, Damen accepted the book from Laurent’s outstretched hand. Their fingertips ended up so close they almost brushed.

“This is not going to sound very great. I’m really not much of an actor.”

“I know,” said Laurent and settled back into his sheets. “It has become abundantly clear.”

Damen opened the book where Laurent had stuck his card, set it aside, and began.

“They wake together,” he read, “on opposite sides of the city.”

He read line after line, page after page, the prose familiar and sometimes attached to memories of word changes Damen had proposed, discussions he’d had with the author about phrasing and pace, about character motivation and how much pain a person was capable of bearing.

It had been the rare book where Damen as an editor had felt at a loss sometimes, because the author understood human suffering in a way Damen had never experienced. He had applied his more technical knowledge, and some intuition about the order of scenes, but re-reading it now still made him feel as raw and unprepared as the first time he’d gone through the manuscript.

He read through the darkest part of the novel and longed more fiercely even than the characters for the release that was to follow. He knew it would come.

Laurent’s breathing was almost unnoticeable, and he shifted only rarely.

_I want to be there for the hopeful ending._

Damen did not try to embellish. He simply read.

He read until finally, the light was spilling out of the pages and Laurent had fallen asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: The morning after they deserved. 
> 
> A little bit of background trivia: I'm a student of Bronze Age Aegean archaeology and my headcanon is that this Damen is a decendent of an elite (if not the royal) family of the ancient Minoan culture on Crete. We know very little about it, only that it was amazingly advanced and that it disappeared completely. Also, I had mountain tea when I was on Crete in April and it was honestly the most amazing tea I've ever tasted. And it does have all sorts of healing effects. 
> 
> Thank you for reading! :) Hopefully, I'll be able to update next Monday.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe out of all the things I've written, I got stuck on the smutty fluff chapter. There is really no excuse, I was just super blocked. I'm still not a hundred percent happy, but any further editing will have to wait until I'm no longer weeks and weeks behind my planned writing schedule. 
> 
> THANK YOU all for your continuing support, and particularly the comments! They are the light in my darkness and my incentive to write when I can't stand to look at a word document. :)
> 
> No warnings this time; our boys get some time off from the angst! Enjoy! :D

Laurent woke as gradually as he’d drifted into sleep. He had not thought it possible to find any last night, yet Damen’s artless reading had him able to close his eyes.

And now, slowly coming into awareness that he had slept and that the sun was rising somewhere behind his window, he let himself retain some of the peace gained undeservedly.

He opened his eyes. The book was back on the nightstand, where Damen must have put it once he’d realized Laurent had fallen asleep. It must have been a deep sleep, perhaps in part owed to the night before, when he had not gotten much. Damen had even blown out the candle; Laurent had not stirred from it.

His eyes travelled downwards now, to where Damen was lying on the ground, right next to Laurent’s bed. His curls were in disarray and though he’d slept on his back, his head was turned just slightly towards Laurent. He was still asleep and very beautiful.

Laurent rolled onto his back and let an arm fall over his face, for a moment blocking out the first rays of a young light.

 _I am not a fool_ , he thought, and held on to it for a moment. _I am not naïve, nor ignorant, nor easily deceived. Not anymore._

He let his arm sink again, with deliberation, and opened his eyes to the sun. When he turned to his side this time, it was with purpose.

 _I don’t believe in the malice my uncle would have me see in you,_ he thought fiercely.

He held his breath and waited for the world to resettle around himself.

It flipped everything he’d previously allowed this to be, but the leap was not far.

Laurent had not given it freely, and yet Damen had earned his trust time and time again.  

Everything bad Laurent had suspected of him might still be true, but it was time to start fighting those thoughts rather than the feelings that had crept in even when he’d thought himself compartmentalizing.   

 _You have nothing to do with any of it,_ he thought, and carefully breathed out. _I don’t believe you even know you’re a pawn in my uncle’s game._

In truth, his uncle might be giving Damianos’ firm money, but it had never been coupled with any condition that Damen had to pursue Laurent. It had not been necessary. Laurent’s paranoia had worked on nothing but numbers and a lack of trust that had been as obviously programmed into him as his issues with allowing himself pleasure.

His uncle would have known Laurent could not recognize simple kindness. That he would be too easily convinced of ill intent and ruin the one good thing that had happened to him in his life.

Laurent was sick of playing to his uncle’s expectations and his advantage.

 _I know who you are, Damianos,_ he thought and it was louder than any doubt.

Damen was good. Damen was true. Jokaste had it right; the only fault to be found in him was that he was incapable of evil. Could not even see it in Laurent.

Damen’s face was as pleasant in sleep as it was in waking. His mouth was turned up just a little, and though the dimple on his left cheek was not as pronounced as it was in animation, it was clearly and beautifully there.

What had happened to Laurent was so far removed from who Damen was that the contrast between them was, at times, almost unbearable.

There had never been the need to particularly like himself. He had never been mirrored by anyone only to find himself lacking. Never been looked at as though he was better than he was.

Suspicious. Wary. Cold. Always playing his uncle’s game, trying to best him on his territory. Or just to survive. Endure. Waiting, made impotent by the safeguards his uncle had installed around himself, and the traps he kept laying out around Laurent.

Laurent’s birthday was not far away. What would it have taken to make him snap just in time for him to lose his inheritance? A well-placed word? Or had his uncle simply been waiting for Laurent to tear them apart without further prompting? Used the inevitably unleashed cruelty to prove Laurent unhinged?

The sun had risen high enough that just the tip of Damen’s straight Greek nose was glowing with it. It looked ridiculous.

And Laurent thought, _I don’t want this to be all I am. I don’t want to exist in the mirror of my uncle; I want to exist in the mirror of a good man._

His fingers, which had been hovering just over Damen’s dimple, bridged that last gap at last, and came to rest on warm skin. There was just a hint of stubble there now, in the early morning, and Laurent very carefully explored this gentle divot that spoke of easy humor and a sweet disposition.

_I don’t care if I know better. I’m choosing to trust you._

A huff of air against his palm broke him out of his thoughts. Underneath his fingertips, Damen’s face was coming to life.

“I’m sorry,” he said, voice rough with sleep. “I really did try to keep still, but that tickles.”

He had opened his eyes and they were sparkling with humor.

“I knew you were awake,” said Laurent, who had not known at all. The dimple had deepened significantly. Laurent had not moved his fingers.

“Of course you did,” agreed Damen, who knew Laurent was lying. He did not seem to mind having Laurent’s hand on his face.

Laurent, who had stretched off the side of his bed to put it there, still thought he should move it now, when Damen easily caught his wrist and pulled his hand down to his lips for a single, lovely kiss to Laurent’s palm.

Laurent felt himself flush and pulled his hand back at last. Damen laughed again and stretched on his pail.

He was too large for Laurent’s bedroom floor, but he easily accommodated to the space allotted to him. His blanket was no longer covering him and his shirt had ridden up to reveal perfectly sculpted abdominal muscles.

There were other things they had done in this room than sleep, Laurent remembered suddenly and with vehemence. He looked away quickly. Then looked again. Damen noticed him looking. His dimple deepened even further.

Laurent poked him in the stomach.

He did not know why he did it. It was what Auguste may have done in this situation.

Auguste had valiantly pretended not to be ticklish. Laurent had remained convinced of this for most of their childhood – the sole victim of attacks that had him at an unfair disadvantage – until finally, Laurent had managed to sneak up on his brother and discovered it to have been the rare case of deception.

Damianos did not put up any such pretense. His body folded around Laurent’s finger with an honest yelp.

The next thing Laurent knew was a sensation of falling. That this was not entirely metaphorical, he only understood when he landed with an ‘oof’.

Damen had pulled on his arm.

Any indignation (or play at it) in the face of having been physically dragged off his bed died in his throat as he lay sprawled on top of Damen, who was bright with the early morning, laughing at whatever face Laurent must be making and not someone out to hurt him.

Who was also warm and solid and more attractive than any man had any right to be. And also twitching in interest against Laurent’s thigh.

Laurent scrambled off him, acutely aware of how hot his face felt as he did so. Even more aware of the many pronounced muscle groups he was accidentally touching while doing so.

“Make me breakfast, you brute.”

He marched out of the room before Damen could get up.

* * *

Damen, who could think of very little he’d rather be doing than have a shot at a proper morning together, did exactly this.

A quick look into Laurent’s fridge and cupboards yielded absolutely nothing except the horrifying realization that Laurent apparently only lived off yoghurt, coffee, canned soup, and an array of sweets, so Damen put a subtle wedge into the door and got some things from his own apartment.

While he was there, he took a moment to brush his teeth and splash some water on his face. He still smelled fresh enough from the shower he took last night, so this he did not have to worry about. He didn’t put on any more clothes either.

It took two trips to bring everything he required to Laurent’s kitchen, and another trip to go calm himself into almost being able to ignore that he could hear the spray of the shower from Laurent’s bathroom.

In his family, nakedness had never been particularly connected with sexuality. He was so unashamed of his own body that his tendency not to notice when he wasn’t all the way covered still occasionally led to unduly flushed faces around him. And as much as he appreciated the sight of a well-formed male or female body, outside an explicitly sexual context, he neither looked at nor noticed it as such.

And yet.

The thought of Laurent naked and wet and wrapped in steam on the other side of the door was a challenge.

Last night had forbidden any such imaginings, but the strange mood of the morning had left Damen feeling a different kind of unbalanced. Perhaps he should not have acted on his impulse and pulled Laurent down on top of him, but it had felt right. Laurent had looked delightfully disoriented.

Not in a bad way. It hadn’t occurred to Damen until later that this harmless bit of physicality, the kind of carefree interaction he would usually be not shy in sharing with a lover, might not have been entirely appropriate for Laurent, who the night before had not been able to allow even the most innocent of touches.

But if he’d seemed ruffled, it had been the harmless kind. Damen knew him well enough to be able to judge apart bad reactions from ones that simply put him on the spot, and into a situation he was not used to.

He’d asked for breakfast, not for Damen to go.

And now he was in the shower, as though having Damen so close while he went about his routines was no big deal at all.

In any case, Damen was quite grateful to have a task to distract him.

It wasn’t too difficult to orient himself in this meticulously organized kitchen. He whipped up some pancakes. Laurent would likely eat them slathered in jam, so Damen had brought strawberry and boysenberry. He also fried double his own usual breakfast of bacon and eggs.

He actually was quite preoccupied with this, so when he heard first the click of a door opening and then Laurent’s voice, he kept flipping the pancakes.

“I believe that’s enough to feed me for a week.”

“Well, we’re eating it togeth-“ said Damen, half-turning, and then dropped the spatula.

Laurent stood in a beam of sunlight on the other side of the room. His hair was a darker gold from the water still clinging to it, and a smattering of droplets glinted like diamonds on his luminous skin.

He was wearing nothing except a very small, white towel.

“I believe the pancakes are done,” Laurent said calmly and walked towards the table, which Damen had set beforehand. The towel left a gap when in movement.

“Damen,” said Laurent.

“Right,” said Damen and quickly turned back around. Then he remembered the spatula was on the ground and bent to pick it up. The pancakes needed to come out of the pan now lest they burn, so rather than rinsing the utensil off, he lifted them out with a fork.

“Have you made coffee?”, Laurent asked, suddenly even closer to Damen, who did not know what to do other than keep facing the now-empty frying pan. As speaking seemed rather beyond his grasp at the moment, he merely shook his head.

Laurent stepped so close Damen could smell the neutral soap he’d used. He quietly spoke almost directly into Damen’s left ear. “The cupboard to your left has filters and coffee grounds. Take them out for me.”

Damen put them onto the counter.

“I like my coffee strong. What about you?”

Damen, who did not drink coffee, managed a shrug. He was still staring straight ahead, almost entirely unseeing.

At his periphery, Laurent’s deft fingers took out a filter and placed it in the coffee maker, before filling it with generous heaps of coffee grounds. He was standing right next to Damen. It took effort not to look at the place where his shoulder met his neck, and then higher, where the temperature of the shower had brought out the still-fading bruises, half-covered by single damp strands of yellow hair.

Had Damen not been so complete and utterly aroused at this, the sheer domesticity of the moment might have moved him towards a different ache.

“If you’ve finished using the stove, I’d suggest turning it off,” said Laurent, still in that same casual tone.

Damen blinked and remembered that indeed he had not. Laurent walked over to the sink and Damen, looking after him, almost burned his hand on the pan instead. He accomplished it at last. The towel hung rather low on Laurent’s waist, pronouncing the light curve of his spine, the sweet dip of where the small of his back met buttocks. 

He felt light-headed.

Before Laurent could return with the water for the coffee maker, Damen busied himself with transferring pancakes, eggs and bacon to the table. Behind him, the sound of water being poured steadily, then the click of a switch.

“Damen,” he heard.

“Hm?” he said, a genuine accomplishment at this point.

“Are you ever going to do anything about the fact that I’m naked?”

Laurent was looking at him with the haughty raise of an eyebrow and a high blush.

Damen may have made a not entirely dignified noise before crossing the distance between them and taking Laurent in his arms.

It was probably good this was not their first kiss, as Damen was beyond refinement, could feign not even the smallest measure of indifference to the warm body against his, the cool taste of Laurent’s mouth.

He simply wanted, and held, and kissed.

Laurent was not passive, in this. His hands may have fluttered before finding a grip on Damen’s hair, but once there, he was not shy about holding Damen’s head as he pleased, to take Damen’s mouth in the same hot, open-mouthed kisses that Damen so desperately wanted to give.

Single pearls of water sept through Damen’s t-shirt, as did the heat of Laurent’s unclothed body against his. Damen was undeniably hard, but so was Laurent, a fact all too clear even before Damen gave that blessed towel one good tuck and one-handedly tossed it somewhere across the kitchen.

There was so much skin underneath his palms that he had a difficult time figuring out where to settle, but Laurent did not complain about his indecisiveness in the least. When Damen at least simply held on to press Laurent even closer to him, he laughed into the space of a breath between them, then caught Damen’s mouth again.

Whatever reservations had plagued him since they had last done this seemed to have vanished entirely, and this alone was enough to make Damen feel faint with desire.

Finally, Laurent pushed him back, just a little. Breathing hard, Damen let him put a modicum of space between them. It was a laughable amount. Laurent’s erect cock was still brushing his thigh.

There were benefits to doing this in daylight, Damen suddenly thought. Laurent had been spectacular in the sparse rays of the moon, the low glow of a lamp; but he was made for standing in sunlight, resplendent.

“Sit down,” Laurent said, any plan of appearing unaffected foiled by his own barely contained arousal. He did not seem to mind it either. It was a triumph, but not one Damen had accomplished.

Damen blindly took a few steps back and finally found a kitchen chair to plop down on. The air between them felt tight and hot, the promise of the moment almost as physical as the touch that was to follow.

Laurent’s eyes held the now familiar gleam of a plan falling in place, but it was clear he got distracted with elements of Damen’s body. He licked his lips.

“Well?” said Damen: a challenge.

He felt his own pulse acutely through his entire body. He could not wait to feel Laurent’s.

But he did wait. Didn’t even touch himself.

Laurent might be aware of what picture he presented to Damen, but there was no doubt Laurent was not unaffected by the way Damen looked either, with his legs spread, cock proudly tenting his boxers, and his arms crossed behind the back of the chair.

Laurent did not take his time. He did not draw it out. He seemed as desperate to touch as Damen was. He put his hands on Damen’s shoulders and made to straddle his lap.

Only for them both to freeze as the chair wobbled.

Finally, Laurent said, with clear dismay, “My furniture is too small for you, you giant animal.”

Damen, who had a good view of the living room, said, “Not all of it.” And with his hands gripping Laurent’s thighs, stood up.

Laurent could do little but hold on to him, eyes wide.

Damen now knew the precise number of free-lifted steps it took for Laurent to be lost for words. It was six. From the way he was pressed against Damen in this position, there was no hiding that his cock was swelling further the longer Damen held him like this.

There were options, of course. Damen liked being on top. He could have laid Laurent out on the couch and fitted himself over him to their mutual delight. But Laurent had planned this. He had wanted to sit on Damen’s lap.

So Damen simply sat them both down, rearranged Laurent’s legs so that they rested comfortably on both sides next to Damen’s thighs, and tried his best not to look as smug as he felt.

Then Laurent was kissing him and running his hands slowly over Damen’s arms and breathing his name into Damen’s ear, and he felt _blessed_ instead. Blessed and very, very aroused.

* * *

It should not be so difficult, taking off a t-shirt. Damen was quite good at it even when it wasn’t himself he was undressing. They had even managed to drag down Damen’s boxers, and Damen had kicked them somewhere across the room.  

In hindsight, perhaps starting with the t-shirt would have been easier, because the unceasing sensation of Laurent’s almost helpless movements against his naked skin were enough to make him have a literally hard time concentrating.

Laurent, it seemed, was not faring much better, if the small hitches of breath and hooded eyes were any indication, as well as his matching inability to manage to fumble Damen’s shirt over his head.

When Damen got stuck with one arm still inside it, he had to put a stop to this, for both their sakes.

Laurent had liked it that Damen was capable of lifting him up. At the moment, it seemed entirely feasible he would not object to being held down.

Damen kept his pressure gentle when he stilled Laurent’s hips with both hands, but Laurent reacted nonetheless.

For the duration for a few heart-pounding moments, Damen feared he had been wrong. Laurent sucked in a harsh gasp, then did not breathe any further than this. His back had gone rigid under Damen’s fingertips.

“Please,” said Damen, in contrast still breathing hard. “Let me take off my shirt.”

He didn’t know whether he should let go or not. Truly, it wasn’t a tight grip. Laurent could move away from this if he wanted to. The question was whether he could work through whatever was blocking him now to decide what he wanted.

It was daring, to keep his hands where they were, but finally, he felt Laurent relax, just a little.

“Good?” asked Damen, because he still could not tell.

Laurent’s body definitely had not stopped being overly interested in the proceedings, but his face was carefully neutral.

“I don’t know,” he said finally, and with more honesty than Damen expected. “It is a concept that requires further study.”

He laid his hands over Damen’s, gently. “But not right now.”

Damen let go. He felt Laurent’s hands tighten around his for a moment, before they, too, retreated.    

Leaning, back, Laurent said, “The purpose of this was to take off your shirt, I believe? Get on with it then.”

His hips kept still now on the strength of his will. That it required will was obvious. There was a quiver to his thighs.

He was a sight to behold in his own right, but his eyes hazily focusing on the skin revealed when Damen first lifted his shirt up, and finally pulled it over his head were enough cause for Damen to go a bit slower on this.

What before had been the awkwardness of two people pulling on the same piece of fabric, both distracted by other things to grip and fondle and grind into, now became a tease.

“You should always be naked,” Laurent said, then flushed so completely Damen had to kiss him again.

Kiss him and take him in his arms and get him moving again.

Slip his hand down until it found unmistakable wetness.

Damen had to take a moment. His head had fallen forward until his crown was lightly pressed against Laurent’s chest. He left his hand where it was.

“Did you think,” Laurent said, restraining his breathing, presumable as not to jostle Damen, “that I did not plan this fully?”

There was a light tremor to his words, growing more significant as Damen looked back up at him.

“I really don’t think all that much.”

“No,” said Laurent quietly. “You’re simpler than this, aren’t you?”

Somehow, it hardly seemed like an insult.

Damen took advantage of this careful planning and slowly pressed one finger inside. He needn’t have been so careful, but Laurent reacted as strongly to penetration as he had the last time.  

“In any case, it was an excellent plan,” Damen said, and kissed the tension out of Laurent’s jaw.

A second finger went in just as easily. Laurent had been thorough. His movements, which had stilled with Damen’s discovery, resumed. Damen was not sure if it was more difficult for him to grind against Damen now or if it had been to stay still beforehand.

“I was making us breakfast,” Damen said, and enjoyed the darkness of Laurent’s eyes as he slid in and out alongside the rocking of their hips, the heady sensation of arousal pressed against arousal. “While you did this.”

“Do you think,” breathed Laurent, “it’s sufficient?”

As a rule, more was always better, but he truly was well-prepped, Damen was leaking, and also, if they had to stop now to get lube from somewhere, Damen might just die.

“If we go slow it is,” he said.

If possible, Laurent’s eyes went even darker.

Damen pulled his fingers out and spread the lube over his cock while Laurent scooted back just a little to give him the space for it.

His arms were rigid, his thighs locked Damen in place, but for every bit his body did not seem ready to do this, the determination in his gaze told Damen not to argue.

When Damen guided him in place and lined himself up, he went easily.

Laurent sank down with the single most beautiful expression Damen had ever seen.

It lacked elegance. It lacked finesse. It felt like a first time, all over again, Laurent awkwardly clutching at him as he lowered himself inch by inch, until finally, he was fully seated on Damen’s cock.

He had closed his eyes at some point, as if overwhelmed with too many sensations at once, and the shaking of his thighs was very real.

Damen was not faring much better at this point.

Laurent looked regal in this light, an impossibly delicate figure, with skin so pale it was close to translucent. His fine hair, drying fast, was glistening gold in the sun; the elegant curve of his eyebrows shone darker in the same light. His face was a masterpiece of angles that could have been too sharp were they not in such perfect harmony.

It was fractured in the same way it had been the last time, when Damen had not been able to judge if this act caused him pleasure or pain.

He felt so tight Damen had to keep himself still just to keep from getting too lost in this too quickly, but there was enough lubrication between them to reassure Damen he had not misjudged.

Laurent did not pull away. Whatever it was, as before, Laurent chose it.  

And Damen could not look away. To see Laurent like this, for Laurent to let him see him like this-…

He made a sound, from somewhere deep inside, and Laurent’s eyes opened.

Whatever Damen might have nonsensically said about the exquisite color was instantly silenced by the shy smile that for a moment danced across Laurent’s face.

He shifted in Damen’s lap and the movement made him contract around Damen. They both breathed in sharply.

For a while, it was only this, barely more than grinding. There was a disarming honesty in the way Laurent was taking pleasure without apparent experience of how this was usually done. His movements were not rhythmic, instead stuttering shifts, half-circles, then small thrusts without even rising up; seeking pressure and friction and what felt so good Damen might burst with letting Laurent set the pace.

Laurent’s eyes kept drifting close, and he buried his head in the crook of Damen’s neck. His arms remained wrapped around Damen’s shoulders in a clumsy embrace. His heart was beating very fast against Damen’s.

It felt achingly innocent.

Finally, Damen could no longer take it, and rolled his hips up to meet Laurent’s.

Laurent’s head reared back; his eyes flew open with a soundless gasp.

Damen did it again, very carefully focused on his own breath and the play of his muscles.

Before Laurent, he had often seen sex as a sport. Not in the way men did who did not appreciate their partners, as a game of collecting as many partners as possible, but as a play between bodies, as the culmination of every move he was physically capable of. The best possible use for his natural strength, the control he had trained into his muscles, the endurance he had built up.

He still got too caught up near the end and everything felt nearer the end with Laurent.

One hand gripped under Laurent’s thigh, the other held tighter over his hip. “Like this,” he said softly, then lifted Laurent up just a little bit, only to let him sink down again.

“I know how to do this,” Laurent hissed, but followed the directions Damen was giving. He adjusted his grip on Damen’s shoulders as well, holding onto them for leverage now.

It felt strange, for a moment. Artificial, as if Laurent had looked up this positioning in a book. Damen regretted interfering.

Then Laurent found a rhythm, eyes now molten on Damen’s.   

It was slow.

It remained slow. Every rise and fall executed with trembling muscles, Damen’s hands providing little more than support. When he was buried all the way inside, he rolled his hips up to get them even closer.

It was not Damen’s instinct to keep every move so deliberate, but Laurent appeared entirely caught up in it.

His inhales and exhales did not match up with the pace; though they were deep and deliberate, and Damen pressed his thumb to the open lower lip to feel hot hair pass through pillowy, quivering lips.

His movements were so controlled now that Damen could barely stand not doing anything to aid them, yet it was not a restrictive kind of controlled.  

He was _experiencing_ , in a way Damen had never seen a partner do.

When it became clear the mixture of exertion and pleasure was too much for Laurent to keep going like this, Damen ran a finger down the vein of Laurent’s neck, then followed a path down Laurent’s body.

On a hunch, he kept his touch lighter than he would with another lover. Laurent was shivering, eyes scrunched tight. He gasped when Damen barely brushed his nipple, then moved past it, further down, until he had a very light grip around where Laurent was most desperate for touch.

His skin was even softer there than Damen knew of his own; satin over steel, hot with arousal and weeping with pre-come.   

With no small measure of shock, Damen realized he had not touched Laurent’s cock before.

Laurent reacted as though no one ever had.

His eyes snapped open, pupils blown wide.

“Damen,” he gasped, and lost his rhythm.

“ _Damen_ ,” he gasped, and came.

Damen, entirely surprised by it, followed him over the edge.

* * *

Laurent felt his body acutely.

Some parts held more sensation than others. His lower body was still fluttering with the aftershocks of orgasm. His legs were hurting from the strain. The way he had slumped over Damen was cutting off the circulation in his calves and feet, yet he could not find it in himself to move quite yet.

Damen was nuzzling his neck in a gesture so tender it made Laurent shiver. He had his large arms wrapped completely around Laurent, holding him close, holding him safe. For the moment, Laurent had no objections, too overwhelmed still with the remnants of pleasure that had apparently rendered him boneless.

Then Damen softened inside him, and his come began to trickle out of Laurent, and this, Laurent did mind.

On weak limbs, he made to extract himself, but Damen pushed him back into his lap the second he had slipped out.

“Damen,” warned Laurent, and found his voice dry and cracked.

“Just a little longer,” said Damen, and brushed back the damp strands of hair that had fallen into Laurent’s eyes. His hand was large enough to cup almost half of Laurent’s face. His fingers were light against Laurent’s scalp.

He smoothed back Laurent’s hair for a while, eyes tender and wondering.

Laurent let him. It was pleasant and distracted him from less comfortable physical sensations. Distracted him from the feeling of needing to earn this kind of tenderness.

When he could no longer block either out and began wiggling again, Damen sighed and let him retreat.   

“Do you want me to leave?”

And Laurent stilled, still half on top of him. Incredulously, he looked straight at Damen’s regretful face.

“I’m not kicking you out, you brute,” he said, as clearly as he could.

He was pleased to note he actually managed to sound a little bit annoyed, when really, he was quite caught up in the fact that out of the two of them, _Damen_ was the insecure one at this moment.

“I merely wish to clean us,” he added, milder.

Damen nodded, and his eyes lit up anew.

“Okay,” said Damen and without much preamble, stood up, dislodging Laurent’s precarious position and picking him up in one smooth move.

“What are you doing?” yelped Laurent, who was being gently manhandled a lot more often today than he was used to.

“Taking us to the shower,” said Damen matter-of-factly, and shifted Laurent into a less undignified position. “Do you mind?”

“Are you just going to carry me everywhere now?” protested Laurent, who actually found his current situation to be quite comfortable. He seemed to weigh nothing to Damen. He had a good hold on one enormous upper arm.

“Yes,” said Damen simply. “You like it.”

Laurent had no retort to that.

“Your breakfast will get cold,” he managed as Damen one-handedly opened the bathroom door.

“It already is. We have time.”

Laurent buried his face in Damen’s hair and smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: Scheming With Snakes. 
> 
> I hope next Monday! But as you can see, I'm super unreliable. I usually post my apologies on tumblr, so check it out if you're waiting for an update. --> my-honourable-barbarian.tumblr.com


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is so late, and it does not contain all I wanted it to contain, but at long last, I have managed to produce a chapter I like enough to be able to publish. I have this terrible tendency to have a harder time writing something after I've already finished the story in my head, but your continued interest in Damen and Laurent's story keeps me interested as well, so this is really very much thanks to your continuing support. :D

Laurent did not mean to spy.

As a matter of fact, he wasn’t doing anything of the sort. He was merely lounging about on Damen’s bed, waiting for him to return, while Damen made a phone call. It was not his fault Damen thought a half-closed door and no attempt at lowering his voice was enough to drown out his side of the conversation.

He tried to focus on the cadence of Damen’s voice rather than on what was being said. Damen had a pleasant voice; Laurent had always thought so. It was straightforward. It lacked pretense. Like the man it belonged to, it was utterly honest.

Right now, he was speaking Greek, and both the pleasant shape of it on Damen’s tongue and the fact that Laurent was not very fluent should have made it easier not to listen.

But he heard every word.

His brain, as usual, would not go quiet. It translated what it could, analyzed the translation, put information onto shelves and sorted them by importance.

At the same time, Laurent wondered what to do about the data inadvertently acquired.

The more time he spent with Damen after deciding to trust him, the less sure he was in how to conduct himself. Before, it had been simple. Painful and lonely and simple. Now, he was growing increasingly aware that trust went both ways. Affection and the faith that it was reciprocated were not simply Laurent’s problem, they were Damen’s as well.

Laurent had put himself not only into a position where he could easily get hurt, he had also become someone with the power to easily hurt another person.

And it was a constant conundrum.

This phone call did not contain truly sensitive information. Damen did not need to know Laurent could understand him; there was no need for Laurent to inform him. If he had cared overly much about Laurent overhearing some things, he would have rescheduled the call until Laurent had left again. Or in case that did not happen – and it might not, Laurent thought with a resurgence of heat in his cheeks – Damen could have taken it outside.

Laurent indulged himself in pushing his face into Damen’s pillow. What was meant as a distraction only worked in terms of heating up his blood. He canted up his hips in mimicry of the position he’d taken earlier.

“This is how you have always wanted me to take you,” Damen had said afterwards, lying next to him and smoothing his hands down Laurent’s back. They had spent enough time in intimate contact for both of them to have noticed Laurent responded most to slow, tender touch. At Laurent’s request, the sex had not been like that this time. Damen seemed determined to make up for it afterwards. It soothed the tremor out of Laurent’s muscles, the defiant triumph in his mind into the present, where he was with Damen.

“I wanted it to be mine,” Laurent had said, and felt only Damen’s large, warm hands on his back, the not unwelcome ache he had left behind, and both their spent on his body.

When Damen finally hung up the phone, Laurent took the explicit sexuality out of his current pose and lay down flat. He kept hugging the pillow. It was large and fluffy. Luxurious. Made to feel as good on the skin as the sheets. Damen probably wouldn’t feel the difference between it and flannel, but Laurent, who never slept naked on his own sheets, appreciated it.  

“That was Nik,” Damen said as he came into the room.

Laurent turned a lazy gaze on him and said, “I know. My spoken Greek may not be as good as your French, but I do understand it quite well.”

It was the right decision. Damen did not look put out. His eyes grew mirthful.

“We can work on your pronunciation together, if you’d like.”

Laurent, who did not like looking like an idiot in front of anyone, said, “My vocabulary and grammar could use some advancement as well.”

“My family will appreciate it,” Damen smiled. Laurent’s heart stuttered.

“Thinking about introducing me to your family already?” he teased, and found his teasing voice might need some help as well, since he mostly just sounded _fond_.

“Of course I am,” said Damianos, without any self-consciousness, and plopped down on the bed next to Laurent. The impact of his bulky frame bounced Laurent’s body in a most undignified manner. “I mean, if you’d like to. That wedding Nik and I were talking about,” he said, and Laurent interrupted, “Nikandros’ wedding, where you will be the best man,” and Damen continued, “Most of my family will be there.”

Not a single secret. Damen had not been hiding the phone call at all.

“You’ve known me for less than a month and you’re taking me to a wedding to meet your family?” he said, over the odd breathlessness that was as much owed to the subject matter of his own sentence as it was to the absolutely spectacular way Damen’s naked upper body looked next to Laurent’s on the sheets.

Laurent turned to his side as well, and laid his hand over Damen’s pectoral. As ever, the contrast between their complexions was particularly aesthetic. He could feel the slightly faster beat of Damen’s heart against the heel of his palm.

“Who said I was inviting you?” said Damen with a smile, and it took Laurent a shameful moment to pull his hand back.

“Oh,” he said, cursing the way Damen quieted his thoughts sometimes. It took him too long to find words that would negate his previous helpless happiness.

Damen caught his hand before he could retreat completely. 

“Laurent,” he said, and shook his head just the tiniest bit against the sheets. It jostled his curls, still a little damp from the sweat of their previous relation. Laurent let himself remain helpless in the face of the dimple in full effect. “I was inviting you. I am inviting you. Would you like to go with me?”

Their hands intertwined beautifully between their bodies.

“When is it?” asked Laurent, and Damen answered, “In five weeks.” And Laurent pointed out, “And you spend every minute you’re not at work in bed with me?” and Damen laughed, “Are you complaining?”

And Laurent was so happy it must have shown, because Damen leaned in to kiss him. Laurent stopped him with nothing but the raise of an eyebrow and then he said, “No.” And had to stop himself from kissing Damianos. Instead, he said, “But Nikandros was. It was why he called.”

Damen’s smile turned sheepish.

“I will concede I might have been shirking my best man duties a little bit.”

He squeezed Laurent’s hand a little bit, and Laurent catalogued the exact way their hands fit together at the same time as he commended, “You know, this will not endear me to him.”

Damen smiled even brighter, even as his brow rose quizzically. Laurent wanted to kiss it. There were several parts of Damen he had not kissed yet. Some, he did not want to think about for the moment, but Damen’s brow, he may be able to put his lips on before the night was through.

“Do you care?”

Laurent pondered his question. It was clear Damen was not only asking in jest, and he would do him the courtesy of answering with all the honesty he possessed.  

Truthfully, he could not picture it. Out of Damen’s family – and the extended circle he considered part of it as well – he had only met Nikandros, whom he had not taken great pains to impress. What would they be like? Happy people, probably, with warm smiles and kind eyes, and a healthy suspicion of prickly strangers who showed up on their beloved son’s arm with no warning. Laurent could not imagine belonging in such a crowd.

“Considering my personality and the likelihood of boisterous drinking and bad table manners on their side, getting your family to like me might be a thing of impossibility.”

And because Damen was not like Laurent, not even a little bit, he dismissed the obvious self-deprication thinly veiled behind an insult to his family, and instead asked,

“So you’ll come?”

And Laurent could not help his own, slower, answering smile.

“Yes. I will not be doing any of the boisterous drinking.”

Damen could not be dissuaded from kissing him now, and Laurent all too happily melted into it, as he was melting into the soft sheets and the security of Damen’s bedroom and the knowledge that he had done the right thing when he hadn’t pretended not to have understood Damen’s phone call.

As he was melting into the feeling of their bodies against each other, side by side, barely rousing so shortly after their last encounter. Just close, for now, without expectation.

Laurent liked these light touches as much as he had found he liked the weight of Damen on top of him. The longer they did this, the more Laurent was coming to know himself in ways he would not have thought to even explore.

Before he had met Damen, sex had been unwanted memories and the abstract attempt to get past them. Had he asked himself if he’d like being held in place in bed, he would not have been able to answer ‘yes’ without shame. So he had not asked. Had simply decided to not do anything he was not fully in control of.

In a way, it was funny that it was sweet, vanilla Damen who had brought up the concept, probably because he thought of it as a normal part of sex, or simply because he had understood some things were triggers for Laurent without even comprehending what a trigger was.

He had not suggested it again after Laurent had told him ‘not today’.

But Laurent had been thinking about it.

Had been thinking about it almost every time large hands almost instinctively molded him to both their pleasure. Had been thinking about it in the aftermath, when Damen had half collapsed on top of him, only to roll off too soon to let Laurent have the control he needed over how they proceeded afterwards. Had been thinking about it _hard_ when Damen had fucked him against the wall while holding Laurent up, in slow, indulgent rolls of his hips that betrayed no hurry or fatigue on his part.

Laurent was coming to know his body, and he was coming to know his pleasure, and he was coming to know that he could still be completely in control even when he was physically restrained by what they were doing.

Because Damen’s was a body made for worship, and yet his primary concern was worshiping Laurent’s.  

Damen had not even asked him to suck his cock. No matter how many times he performed the act on Laurent. No matter how slack-jawed he went whenever Laurent did as much as lick a spoon clean.

The closest he came to the question was when he traced Laurent’s lips with his fingers and Laurent let them in willingly. And Damen would not do anything except breathe harder and look at Laurent like this small thing was a miracle, and Laurent would use his tongue to trace Damen’s fingerprints and bite down a little near the knuckle.

And when Laurent pulled back and parted with a kiss to Damen’s palm, his eyes would shine and Laurent would be so hard he could barely wait to guide these fingers to where he wanted them.

Laurent had promised himself to never apologize for not wanting to be on his knees in front of anyone ever again, but those kisses were becoming more and more like _promises_.

He did not know yet if he would keep them.

But he was coming to know himself.  

Damen broke the kiss to brush Laurent’s hair from his face.

The warmth of their kiss was still between them even as Damen whispered,

“I would like to meet your family as well. At some point. If you’d like.”

And Laurent stayed here, in this moment, with this man, because this was where he wanted to be.

“You’ve met everyone I care for,” he said quietly, and Damen understood.  

“Then I look forward to getting stabbed in the leg by Nicaise many more times.”

Laurent had seen the puncture wounds. Had traced them with his fingers until his fingers had become occupied with something else. Damen healed fast. They were scarring already.

“I wish you could have met Auguste,” said Laurent, and Damen’s eyes softened even more.

Laurent kissed his brow.

* * *

In a very superficial manner, Damen had been aware of how lucky he was. Being born into a wealthy family, looking the way he did, and doing well at a prestigious job he actually enjoyed, it was a sentiment that had been brought to his attention many times.

But he had not _felt_ lucky, not truly understood what it meant, until he had met Laurent.

He had not told this to Laurent, as he felt it might offend his formerly shut-off neighbor, but he was very aware of it whenever Laurent was near.

It was the contrast of things.

The ease with which Damen had fallen into his comfortable life, and how hard Laurent was fighting just to achieve any sort of comfort at all. That he had chosen a future profession that would not let him dwell in the fictional worlds he loved so much, but instead would constantly confront him with the worst of humanity.

“It’s not much longer now,” he’d told Damen earlier, when he had collapsed into Damen’s awaiting arms. “My internship with Vannes is ending with the week.”

“Hmm,” Damen had said and kissed his forehead. “You’ll be able to rest for a bit.”

“What are you talking about, Damianos,” Laurent had said, flustered (presumably from the forehead kiss). “I will need to start studying for my bar exam.”

“And celebrate your birthday.”

Laurent had tensed and pulled away.

“Yes,” he’d repeated. “My birthday.”

He’d seemed troubled enough that even kissing had not distracted him, and when Damen had gone to his knees for him, he’d only told him, “Not tonight.”

And then been even more on edge afterwards. As if he were expecting Damen to leave without the promise of sex.

“Okay,” Damen had said, still on his knees, and pressed a chaste kiss to the sliver of skin exposed over Laurent’s waistline, before leading Laurent to the kitchen to try his latest pie creation.

Damen had watched him, as subtly as he could, as he had forced his ever-working brain to quieten into whatever small peace Damen’s mindless chatter could provide.

There was more than just this, of course, that made Damen acutely aware of his privilege. It was the rare story about the brother he must have loved more fiercely than anything, always in the past tense. The utter lack of anything resembling a social net to see him through his current struggles. The extent of any surviving family appeared to be the uncle he never wanted to speak about and a rude, traumatized pre-teen he wanted to adopt.

It made Damen work harder at repairing his relationship with his brother. It made Damen call his parents more than once a week.

And it made Damen want to be all the things for Laurent he so clearly didn’t know how to have.     

For practical reasons (“You will break even more of my furniture, you giant brute”) they spent more time in Damen’s apartment than Laurent’s. At the moment, this meant sitting side by side on Damen’s couch. Laurent had his head on Damen’s shoulder, and one of his arms wrapped around his own bent knees.

He was reading, and Damen read along with him, a fact that had not been discussed and was acknowledged only by the slower pace with which Laurent turned the pages. It always took a few minutes until a position that included casual touching felt natural, but Laurent was beginning to adjust to such things with more ease the more often they attempted it.    

“I didn’t actually like reading as a child, you know,” Damen said, and felt more than saw Laurent stop reading his book. “There were so many other things to do.”

Laurent’s head was not so much a weight on his shoulder as it was a reminder he was there, as if he believed Damen would forget about him. He did this a lot, Damen had noticed.

“You hardly have any books in your apartment now,” said Laurent, without judgement. “It would have surprised me to picture you hunched into a corner, caught up in pages rather than action.”

It was clear Laurent was painting a picture of his own childhood, and Damen smiled against the top of Laurent’s head.  

“I had no interest in reading,” he continued, after a bit, in which Laurent had not resumed turning the pages. “I was actually far slower in learning than my brother. But I felt I needed to best him in sports before I would focus on besting him at these kinds of endeavors.”

Laurent only hummed. Damen chanced a quick look down at him and found he had his eyes closed. His eyelids were so sheer they are almost transparent, wrought through with purple capillaries. Damen wondered, sometimes, if closing his eyes even provided Laurent any rest from experiencing the world around him at all. At the moment, he appeared to try.

Something had changed inside Laurent, at a point Damen could not entirely determine. Laurent was never constant. He was never simple. And yet, he spent so much time only focusing on Damen.

“Kastor was the one who thought to open up a publishing firm,” Damen continued, and felt so incredibly blessed to be sitting here like this, fully clothed, with his arm loosely around this beautiful man, who was carefully closing his book to listen to Damen.

“He asked our father for a loan, but father wouldn’t hear of it. I never understood why. He had a good concept, and my family is certainly wealthy enough.”

Laurent handed Damen the book.

“How did he get you on his side?” he asked quietly. Damen could see him trying not to think too hard. He placed the book on the side table, just as careful with it as Laurent had been.

“Like I said, it was a good concept. I was about to finish business school anyway, added a couple of years studying literature, and meanwhile, Kastor assembled a talented team.”

He thought on it for a few moments, then added,

“I don’t know where most of them went.”

He had regretted the slow loss of one after the other of the old team. A few remained, of course, but the turnover of steadily employed people had perhaps been greater than with other publishing firms. Not in the last years, of course. Everything had been just fine in the last years.

“Who asked your father this time?”

Laurent’s eyelids fluttered for a moment, but his voice was even.

“I did, of course. I made sure to point out Kastor’s contribution to the concept, of course.”

Laurent’s slow, deep breaths transferred from the side of his torso to Damen’s hand which was comfortably wrapped around it.

“Jokaste said she founded your firm with you.”

Surprised, Damen looked back at Laurent’s face, and found he still had his eyes closed.

“When did she tell you this?”

“We meet twice a week at the reptile house and scheme together while cooing at snakes.”

Damen, who despite what most people thought of him did actually have a sense of humor, was almost ninety percent sure this was a joke.

“Of course you do,” he nodded, and pressed a kiss onto the top of Laurent’s head. Laurent, as he sometimes did, shivered almost unnoticeably.

“Yes, she was there from the beginning,” Damen went on and began to gently massage along Laurent’s side, careful to keep the touch from becoming sexual. “We met when we were partnered up for an exercise in a creative writing class. I was not very good at it, of course. She took my story apart completely. Utterly ruthless, you would have been proud. And yet all it did was make me want to be better.”

She had challenged him, not as easily impressed as most people he interacted with. Looking back at it now, he nonetheless also remembered honey, strewn between an honest assessment of his meager skills.

“By the third revision, it was a halfway decent effort. Obviously, I’m not a writer, but I learned a lot. She’s still one of the best editors on our staff, though she’s doing less of it since taking over the hiring and firing of personnel.”

Laurent shifted, and eventually settled into a new position, with his head on Damen’s lap. He looked straight up at Damen, his eyes particularly beautiful in the dim light of the lampshade and the dramatic shadows of his eyelashes cast by its angle.

“You don’t oversee this personally?” he asked, and took Damen’s hand to hold it over his heart. Damen was relieved to find the beat even, and most of the tension gone from him.

“Of course I do. But as Jokaste has pointed out on more than one occasion, I’m too gullible to be trusted to see what is bad for the company.”

Laurent was still looking at him. He had begun running the tip of a finger around one of Damen’s knuckles.

“So you agree with her assessment.”

Damen had no particular wish to keep talking about Jokaste at the moment, not when Laurent was being so utterly tender.

“I know she’s right about me,” he said, almost without thinking about it at all. “That I’m naïve, when it comes to some things. I don’t really observe things correctly unless I am pointed in the right direction.”

Laurent closed his eyes.

“Sometimes not even then,” he said, and it was neither an insult nor was it teasing.

“So you agree with her assessment as well?” Damen asked, and began stroking his free hand through Laurent’s hair. Underneath his palm, Laurent’s heart stuttered for a moment, then returned to its even beats. He turned his head ever so slightly into Damen’s hand.

“You _are_ naïve,” he said, with his eyes still closed. “You don’t see ill will or deception, and the dark side of humanity is entirely inaccessible to you. Of course she is right.” Laurent breathed out quietly. “My brother was like you. He was the best man I knew. It is not a fault you should endeavor to correct.”

Damen did not know what to say to that, other than the expression of a sentiment Laurent might not be entirely ready for, so he merely kept petting Laurent’s soft hair.

Eventually, he said, “I have not been on the best of terms with my brother until recently. A rift between us felt justified, as we both had a weakness for the same woman, but truthfully, I wish I could have been more forgiving earlier. Kastor may never have apologized with words, but it has never been his way. He has always been a man of action. He took over dealing with our company’s financials soon after we fought. I was always rather bored with that aspect of the job.”

Laurent’s eyes snapped open at the same time as his body froze completely.

“Your brother handles the financials,” he repeated tonelessly.   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: The plot thickens, Laurent thinks too much, and Jokaste makes some observations. 
> 
> I don't know when I can post the next chapter. In general, I won't be able to update as frequently, as university demands much of my time and I have a couple of deadlines to meet for other writing projects. I do have much of the following chapters written, but they have some missing scenes and are in need of a huge round of editing. I'll do my best to have new content up as soon as possible!


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In Move That Surprises Herself More Than Anyone, Local Fanfic Author Actually Manages To Update! Click Here To Read More!!! 
> 
> After I posted the last chapter, I realized this is now officially the wordiest thing I have ever published (past 50k). Not only that, the amount of kudos, comments, bookmarks and views is simply breathtaking. Thank you for still being here! :D
> 
> No real warnings this time, but we've officially reached plotty territory, and with it comes Laurent spiralling a little and lashing out.

Ice suffused Laurent’s veins as he sat up, dislodging Damen’s hand in his hair.

Kastor. Of course.

Laurent’s mind, at long last, was clear. Even chosen trust had not provided such complete clarity.

“Damen,” he said and felt his heart trip up inside his chest. “You are in danger.”

Damen let Laurent extricate himself from the warmth of closeness. It faded quicker today, until what remained was merely the ghost of a touch, hairs standing on his arms as everything fell into place.   

Truly, Laurent should have looked into this explanation sooner. He had considered it, of course, but too briefly. Discarded it, for the simple reason that Damen’s brother had not been in the country at the time his uncle had first transferred substantial sums to an ailing firm. That he had not known about his unofficial role within the company.

“What do you mean?” said Damen, who trusted too easily. Who had forgiven his brother even for having slept with the woman Damen had wanted to marry.

“Laurent?” Damen said, and stood up to reach out to him. Laurent stepped back. There was no warmth left. His mind was clear, and it was ice, because it had to be.

Kastor, the one who had already been established to be deceitful and without familial loyalty. Who had brought financial ruin to Damen’s enterprise by investing money they did not have into things that yielded nothing in return. Who had funneled part of the funds into his own account, and then turned around to use them to buy shares in the company. Who would have failed in his second attempt of a take-over, but this time taken the company – and Damen – down with him.

Who would not fail now. With this money backing him, he would take the company from the brother in whose shadow he had stood all his life.

And Damen would be too confused to understand the betrayal until it was too late.

“Did I do something wrong? What can-… should I-…”

Damen, who was good. Who was kind. Who had only ever been with Laurent because he had wanted to be. Who had weathered all of Laurent’s moods and traumata and unwillingness to see Damen for who he truly was.

Who had always seen more in Laurent than the rot that surrounded him.

“I need you to call Jokaste.”

Damen, whom Laurent had used and mistrusted and collected evidence against. Who all the while had been in peril.

Laurent’s mind was clear and cold and spinning plans.

His heart was close to bursting.

“I believe we need to meet up.”

* * *

Jokaste was, as ever, a woman eager to take a good opportunity once presented to her. Not having been born as privileged as she later claimed, she had been faced with either the choice to let this be her lot in life, or to take what had not been given to her.

She had made the most of it. More of it than anyone knew, even.

She knew how to play the game as well as anyone, now. Knew how to manipulate without appearing the villain, how to spin her own narrative as well as their authors did.

Most of the time.

It was a pity, really, that it had to have been incorruptible Nikandros who had found out about her affair with Kastor. 

Still, there were no regrets. Only more opportunities.

In a not entirely unforeseen twist of events, Laurent de Vere was the one who called. He did not introduce himself, and he was using Damen’s phone.

“Unfortunately for both of us, it would appear we need to meet,” he said, without preamble, his voice unmistakable and tone too carefully neutral.

“Do we?” She neither raised her eyebrow nor examined her perfectly manicured fingers. There was no need for it. She was fairly certain it was how he pictured her anyway. If there was one thing she had learned by now it was how to cultivate an image of herself others carried within themselves whether they wanted to or not.

Laurent was similar, in a way; except where she relished in her self-made cliché, he did his best to be unpredictable. Both times they had met, he had been putting on an act. Effortlessly seductive by being carved in ice the first time. Sparkling, over the top, and effusive the second. Neither entirely untrue. Neither even a fraction of all he was.

“You’ve known this conversation was coming since we last spoke,” he said now, as if she were particularly tedious.

And she had known, just as she had known there was no getting Damen back after he had told her to leave for the sake of his coldly provocative neighbor.

Taking it in stride as practiced, she ventured straight into planning. He would not be the one setting this scene. “The office is out of the question, of course, and I do not feel either of us could trust our drinks if we were to go out together.”

“Damen will be there as well.”

It was the first thing that stopped her short.

“My apartment, then,” she finally offered.

She half expected him to object, but all he said was, “Free of surveillance, I presume?”

“Perfectly.”

After negotiating a time – sooner than she would have thought; he must be either more impatient or more desperate than he let on – she added, “As you’re bringing Damen, you don’t require an address.”

“I wouldn’t have required an address even if I weren’t.”

She hung up, this time rolling her eyes for real.

And because she was nothing if not a dramatic bitch, she then proceeded to go shopping.

* * *

To say that Damen was unnerved would be the greatest of understatements.

 _‘You are in danger,’_ Laurent had said, and then offered absolutely no explanation for this ludicrous statement.

As much as he had wrecked his brain since then, Damen had not been able to find out what could possibly have brought it on. Something to do with Kastor? But why? And how could Laurent know anything about it?

And now this meeting with Jokaste? In her own apartment no less? There were many things Damen preferred to ever having both Laurent and his ex-girlfriend in one room again, and now it would appear whatever Laurent did not want to clarify to Damen himself, Jokaste already knew.

“I already know they slept together,” he cautiously told Laurent on their way to the meeting. “If that’s what you want to confront us about.”

“It’s not,” Laurent said. And then, “Not in the way you think.”

He wasn’t touching Damen. He had gotten into the car without so much as a handshake in greeting. (Not that they had ever shaken hands.)

Damen knew he had not slept, despite pretending otherwise. He had been stiff in Damen’s arms, and no matter how many times he had clearly forced his body to relax, it had never lasted long. Damen had half wondered if he should just put his mouth on him to distract him from thinking so terribly much, dismissed the idea, snuggled closer, felt Laurent go tense and then unclench his muscles, then go tense again, re-excavated the idea and dismissed it again, when at around three in the morning, Laurent had simply stood up and left.

Damen had pretended to be asleep, of course, simply to make it easier on him. It did not seem like the kind of night when he could catch Laurent’s hand in his and ask him what was wrong.

He had no illusions about his skills as an actor. Laurent must have known he was faking it when he’d loomed over Damen for a while, and finally pressed a kiss to Damen’s left cheek before walking silently out of Damen’s apartment.

It had been a kiss so fleeting Damen might have imagined it were it not for the brief touch of warmth, and the tickle of a few strands of Laurent’s soft hair.

Damen had not liked it. He liked it even less now that Laurent was sitting as far away from him as he could.

* * *  

Unlike Damianos, who for all his status and wealth appeared perfectly content in his relatively modest apartment, Jokaste was unafraid to show she had money.

They were greeted by an actual doorman, who chatted animatedly at an uncharacteristically monosyllabic Damen, about how he hadn’t seen Damen in a while, and how he was doing, and who Laurent was.

The fact that Damen did not answer the last question did not go unnoticed. Laurent supposed it was fair. They had, after all, never gotten to a point where they had defined their relationship.

He indulged himself in brushing against Damen as they got into the elevator, but for all Laurent had a running list in his head of things he wanted to do with Damen, neither initiated Laurent’s first kiss in an elevator.

It was fine, really. His stomach was a clump of painful emptiness. He would not have been able to enjoy it.

The elevator did not take them up to the penthouse, but as they exited, Laurent understood this to be less a show of modesty and more due to the fact that the view from this floor was simply better. The ceilings were high nonetheless, and the furniture in perfect, expensive contrast to the fashionable shade of the walls.

Jokaste had set herself in scene much as Laurent would have expected. Dressed as impeccably as ever, she was seated on a high barstool at the freestanding kitchen counter, a cup of fragrant espresso in front of her. She was trailing two long, tastefully shaded nails over the rim of her cup. Laurent wondered if it was her Damen had copied this idiosyncrasy from or if she was merely doing it to provoke the thought that she had left a mark on his life.

Annoyingly, Laurent found it was working. He had stepped closer to Damen without consciously choosing to, the challenge to a claim he had no right to make putting him into a defensive position on instinct.

Instead of greeting her – she did no such thing either – he left Damen’s side to examine a painting she had positioned on an otherwise empty wall. It was barely more than swirls of gold across a vast canvas, vivid enough to stand out against the subdued turquoise in the background. He was displeased to find himself liking it.

“Hello Jokaste,” Damen said finally. Laurent did not turn around to see, but his tone made no secret of his impatient annoyance at both their put-upon show of power.

“Damen. How nice to see you in my apartment again,” Jokaste was saying, and then Laurent did turn around. She had gotten up and was kissing the air next to Damen’s cheek, gracing it ever so slightly with her lips. She had pulled him down a little to do it. “Though it has not been too long, of course.”

Laurent’s stomach twisted further. He turned back to the painting. The swirls were almost too harmonious.

“Would either of you care for something to drink?”

She had already pulled out the bottle before she clarified, “Scotch, Damen?”

“Yes, thank you,” Damen said. He downed the first two fingers of amber liquid as easy as others would cheap whiskey. He re-filled his own glass and looked at Laurent with a clear question mark drawn between his brows. 

Truly, Laurent should stop putting it off any longer.

“None for me, thank you,” he said instead, and turned away again.

“That reminds me,” Jokaste said, and walked into a different part of the apartment. “Have you met my new pet?”

She was clearly expecting them to follow her. Damen was still looking at him, so Laurent strolled after her.

“Is that a joke?”, said Damen, when Jokaste turned back around with a small yellow and white snake wrapped around her arm.

Laurent found his mouth twitching.

“Isn’t he a delight?”, she said, and stroked his head. “I’ve called him Laurent.”

“Snaurent,” said Damen at the same time as Laurent said, “How inspired.”

“I have been assured he isn’t venomous,” Jokaste went on, “Only to watch out that he doesn’t suffocate you in your sleep. Would you like to hold him?”

Without blinking an eye, Laurent took the snake from her. It was a very small snake.

“This is all very entertaining,” Damen interrupted them, “but I for one would very much like to know what we are doing here.”

“Do tell him,” Laurent said, and helped the snake anchor itself on his arm.

Gratifyingly, Jokaste merely asked, “Tell him what?”

The snake didn’t weigh too much. It was nice and cool.

“About how you only slept with Kastor to gain inside information to prevent his hostile take-over.”

Jokaste’s jaw snapped shut. Damen almost comically whirled around to look at her.

Laurent felt his namesake _(_ name _snake)_ slowly begin to constrict around his hand. _Ineffectual_ , he thought, and with his other hand patted the small triangular head.

* * *

Damen was clenching his jaw so hard his head had to ache. He was on his third scotch by the time Jokaste finished talking. It was almost impressive; she had kept her narration short.

She could not say she was particularly pleased with how this meeting had progressed.

Laurent had busied himself by playing with the snake – who was actually female and actually named Berta but had been the closest fit on short notice – but Jokaste knew he was listening more attentively even than Damen.

“If all this has been true all this time, why tell me now?” Damen asked finally, looking just about as thunderous as she had ever seen him. The question was directed at Jokaste, but not actually meant for her, so she did nothing except raise her eyebrow at Laurent.

“Have you not noticed he is scheming again?” Laurent said, blasé words in answer to Jokaste. He was still looking at nothing except the snake, which was currently slithering up his out-stretched arm and smelling his cheek with its tongue. Unfortunately, he had not only risen to the challenge, but was so casually beating her it was almost insulting. He was doing it by being _cute_.

Damen’s eyes, which had been traveling back and forth between them amidst his journeys to more two hundred and eighty-dollar scotch, stayed on him at last, but Laurent did not seem inclined to dignify him with a glance.

“It is fairly obvious,” he explained, without much inflection. “Since taking over your company’s finances, he has managed to nearly bankrupt you through a number of bad calls, likely made with the intention of proving your incompetence as CEO. You are, after all, still officially the one in charge of your investments.”

He spoke more to the snake than either of his other listeners, but only in the way of direction. They were patronizing words. Made to cut. Jokaste watched their impact on Damen with barely more than a raised eyebrow. It was an interesting strategy; Laurent was possibly even more ruthless in protecting Damen than she had been. Cruel, even. The words found their mark unerringly.

She wondered at it.

“Recently, he has acquired an anonymous benefactor and begun putting aside a tidy sum for himself to buy you out once his mismanagement and several illegal activities get linked back to you,” Laurent continued, and this actually was news to her. Laurent, however, did not elaborate. Instead, he gave the little snake a kiss on its little head, and continued speaking as though every weak point had been pre-examined, correctly calculated, and now need only be found with a sure blade.

“It’s quite neat, really. The neglected brother, never loved as much as he wanted to be, finally proving himself more competent than you. What will your father say, I wonder?”

Examining Damen was not necessary, after this. Jokaste kept her eyes on Laurent. He was far stiffer than his fluid movements let on. Nervous. Talking too much even for his own liking.

“How do you know about any of this,” Damen finally spoke, and his tone was so flat Jokaste still felt no need to look at him.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Laurent said, and his sharp gaze darted to Damen exactly once, and then focused on Jokaste instead. “It would appear I’ve kept a closer eye on your finances than either of you have.”

She almost smiled. He was fortifying himself. The gaze he finally turned on Damen was guarded with so much steel Jokaste expected him to flinch. To his credit, Damen only frowned back. 

His silence filled the room. It swallowed whatever other viciousness Laurent might have gotten ready to spew.

“That would be all, I believe,” Laurent said finally. It took a very trained ear to detect the slight waver in it, but he allowed her no time to interpret further.

“Jokaste, your snake is hungry. I do hope you’ve gotten around to procuring her something to eat.” The pronoun was noted. Jokaste had not actually expected him to know anything about snakes.

“As she is a new acquisition,” he added. He gave the snake one last pat on the head, and then expertly dislodged it from his arm. It seemed displeased to be deposited into Jokaste’s hands instead. But only for a moment.

“Thank you for lending us your apartment,” Laurent said, and without another glance at Damen, left for the elevator.

It was unsurprising that it took Damen a moment to follow, and the moment concluded with the closing of the doors. It was equally unsurprising that he pressed the button nonetheless, letting out an agitated sound. Had the doors been open even a slit, he might have wrenched them apart with his bare hands.

She almost wondered if he would acknowledge her at all before he went after Laurent, but he did. 

“We will talk about this, Jokaste,” he told her grimly, before the doors closed once more.

Jokaste remained in her apartment, the little snake wrapping itself around her arm the way it had Laurent’s.

“I truly don’t know what more there is to say,” she told it.

* * *

Laurent was walking fast enough for it to count as running away. By the time Damen stormed out of the building, he had almost reached the next crossroads, his disappearance only hindered by the lack of crowd to slip into.

Even when he had clearly noticed Damen was following him, he still wasn’t stopping his long strides. He was probably an excellent sprinter, as even this high tempo still seemed to translate almost naturally from his limbs. 

“Laurent.”

Laurent kept ignoring him.

In any other situation, Damen would have let him go to sort out his thoughts before confronting him again.

But he would take whatever acidity Laurent on the defensive might resort to for the sake of a little _honesty_.

It was long overdue, from what he was beginning to understand. Laurent did not get to exit dramatically after dropping a bomb like this.

“I won’t stop following you,” Damen called. He had not yet resorted to running, but Laurent’s steps stopped as abruptly as if he had cut in front of him.

He did not turn around until Damen had reached him.

He stood ramrod straight, taking carefully slow breaths through his nose. His jaw was as tense as the look in his eyes. He was wearing the suit again, armor without a single weakness. What visible marks Damen had left on him were entirely covered up by the dark fabric.

He was looking at Damen as one would look at a particularly obnoxious stranger.

“Please do speak, I don’t have all day,” he said and sounded as frosty as the first time they had met. This more than anything set Damen’s teeth on edge. His entire body was overrun with a fizzy kind of energy that had him almost shaking. He wanted nothing more than to grab Laurent and either shake him until Laurent stopped playing at apathetic when clearly, he was not, or kiss him until Laurent had dissolved enough to begin speaking on his own.

He did neither. He might not be very much in control of himself, but he was completely sure if he touched Laurent now, he would never be allowed near Laurent again.

“Is this what you wanted?” he asked instead, as calmly as he could. “A big scene to make both Jokaste and me look stupid?”  

“You needed to know your options. You managed to look stupid all on your own.”

Damen took a very deep breath. It did not help a lot. “All I’ve gotten from this is that everyone, including you, has been lying to me for a long time. What do you mean, my options?”

Laurent’s gaze became even more incredulous. He still stood a good five steps away from Damen and if his posture wasn’t sharp enough to cut oneself on, his eyes were.

“The woman you wanted to marry,” said Laurent, as slowly as if he were explaining quantum mechanics to a toddler, “just told you that everything she has done to end your relationship has been motivated by her wish to protect you, and you ask me this question?”

Laurent’s logic was so mind-boggling Damen could have screamed. Never mind that Laurent couldn’t possibly know Damen had wanted to propose, and yet did; Damen was past the invasion of privacy.

“Jokaste is not an option, I’m with you!”

It almost earned him a scoff.

“I’m with you,” Damen repeated, and missed ‘soothing’ by quite a lot. 

Laurent had the audacity to say, “You don’t have to be.”

“Yes, I’m starting to get that.” Damen took a deep breath and shook his head at Laurent’s haughty expression. “This is too convoluted for me, so let me just make this clear. If this is an elaborate ploy to trick me into faltering in our relationship, you can forget about it. If you don’t want to be with me, that’s your prerogative, but stop acting like you expect me to walk away any minute.”

“The money your brother is using at the moment is mine,” said Laurent precisely. “It is part of my inheritance.”

Damen reared back.

Two days ago, they had been tangled together on Damen’s mattress and Laurent had prohibited him from moving away to get them something to drink. _‘A little while longer_ , _’_ he had muttered, and pressed an almost innocent kiss above Damen’s heart. And Damen had pulled the blanket over them both and tucked it around Laurent the way he liked it and he had felt so happy he could have burst with it. 

“Don’t look so shocked,” Laurent was saying now, voice cold and body language forbidding. “It isn’t me transferring funds to him. Not twenty-one yet, remember? Do keep up. You’ve learned already I am not on good terms with my uncle.”

Damen felt so keenly off-balance he really, desperately wanted to sit down.

“You knew about it before I even mentioned Kastor’s name,” he said and realized it at the same time.

And Laurent smiled the ugliest smile Damen had ever seen on his face.

“Ah yes, _finally_. And here I thought there was no brain at all inside that giant skull of yours. Of course I knew.”

The insult almost didn’t make an impact anymore, because Laurent was frankly horrible at the moment and he was absolutely right: Finally, Damen saw clearly.

“You were shocked that Kastor was the one in charge,” he stated.

And a horrifying sort of triumph settled in the corner of Laurent’s beautiful mouth.

“For the longest time,” he said, as though he had been waiting for it, “I thought it was you accepting the money.  I was convinced you had been bought to undermine me, to distract me, to destabilize me. To crush me, if possible. I went along with it because I told myself you did not matter. That you were merely an extension of the seemingly endless and frankly _tiring_ game my uncle has been playing since my brother died. That if this was one more thing I had to endure, I would at least use you for what little you were worth, before you inevitably revealed yourself.”

Three days ago, Laurent had thrown popcorn at him and laughed so hard at the kernels that got stuck in Damen’s hair that tears had run down his face. Later, he had plucked them out personally and with care, and then he had insisted on washing Damen’s hair. If Damen were to focus on it, he’d still be able to feel the gentle fingers massaging shampoo into his scalp.

“I have since decided you are simply too dim-witted to actively be a part of his scheme. And now I have learned I had it wrong all along. That I have been the one endangering you. My uncle is the one giving Kastor the money with which he is currently buying you out. Do with this information what you like; I am done pretending.”

This time when he walked away, Damen merely watched him.

Until his silhouette became one among many, his presence dissipated like mist.

Eventually, Damen left for the opposite direction.

* * *

Laurent made it home, somehow.

* * *

Jokaste did not immediately set the snake back down. Unlike Laurent, she was not naturally good with animals, nor did she particularly like them, but the snake did not seem to mind this. It was not repulsive to touch, and indifference about each other was not a difficult status to accomplish.  

Her apartment was colder for not having Damen in it. She had noticed this before.

There was no reason for her to be alone, no one left to wait for. When all this was over, it was time for her to set her sights somewhere else. There were days when _absence_ was a word written in capital letters, when it softened parts of her she had committed to other purposes.

She relished the luxury she had earned. It was more than satisfaction with the standard she had established for herself; it was the relief in knowing it would _last_.

The elevator opened again.

Truthfully, despite what he had said, she had not expected Damen to come back. Not so soon, anyway.

His presence filled the room like a thundercloud.   

Perhaps she was growing less perceptive with distance. Perhaps she knew him less now that he was in no capacity hers. Perhaps she had never known enough of him.

He went for the scotch without giving her more than a look. It was his fourth. By now, even he should begin to feel its effect. She told herself to dispel the ever-running numbers inside her head that told her how much money he now owed her for it. It still did not quite measure up to what she owed him, and in any case, it would be petty to point it out. She could afford it.

He stopped with the glass half-way to his mouth.

No, she still knew him well enough.

Laurent had said something else, and it had shocked him more than even the revelation of his brother’s treachery.

In a strange way, this day had shaken something loose. She had willingly sacrificed something she had wanted for the sake of someone else’s happiness, and it had seemed like a steep price. She had thought this was as much love as a person like her might be able to give.

Laurent had treated Damen like a child today. He had discredited any capability of thinking for himself. But had Jokaste been different?

She had given much, yet Laurent dared more. As much as his actions today had been condescending, they had also been clear. They had returned Damen into a role that demanded agency. Whatever else would happen – and Jokaste had no doubt Laurent was plotting more than a simple reveal – Damen would have to be a knowing participant. Damen would be able to make his own decisions.

“I didn’t believe you,” Damen was saying to her now. He finally brought the drink to his lips. “When you warned me about Kastor. You and Nik both told me to be careful and I didn’t even want to listen.”

He looked grim. Disillusioned in a way Jokaste had meant to spare him.

“If I had just listened, there would have been no need for you to-”

She rolled her eyes, almost fondly.

“Oh please. I made my choices. Sleeping with your brother was not a hardship.”

He let the glass sink again, frowning. In the entire course of their relationship, he had never looked at her like he was trying to understand her.

“You let us fall apart. You let me _resent_ you.” He said, “You let everyone resent you.”

All he had done today was look at Laurent as though he was trying to understand him.  

Jokaste did not speak. She found she had no need for this conversation.

“I loved you,” Damen said, as though he was telling the truth. He sounded hurt in a way he never had, not even when their relationship had fallen apart.

She had known about the ring when she had gone to bed with Kastor. There might have been another way. Undoubtedly, she could have found another way.

“You did not,” she said, and meant it. “You saw what you wanted to see.”

Even now, Jokaste suspected his words were not entirely intended for her.

He clenched his jaw, as ever far more handsome for how expressive everything about him was.

She added, “I have no regrets.”

It was a lie. She had not known it was a lie before she said it.

Likely, it was convincing enough for Damen. Damen wasn’t even thinking about her anymore. Not solely.

“I can’t be with you now,” he was saying, and thankfully, he said it like a truth. As though it needed to be spoken, when they both already knew. “It’s-… maybe if I had known before.”

As ever, so sincere in things that would never come to pass. Things even he knew better. She waved him off in a subtle gesture and noticed the snake was still holding on to her arm.

“You’ve exchanged one snake for a far cleverer one,” she said, with a curl of her lips. What a silly thing to let into your life. What a sillier thing to care about.

“I don’t _get_ him half of the time,” Damen exclaimed suddenly, and shook his head vehemently. “I don’t know what today was about. Our entire relationship-…” He stopped himself, and finally downed the scotch.

 _We’re not the same, Laurent and I. No matter the front we have been putting on, we are not the same. But it appears our actions are quite similar_ , she thought, _when we think we do not deserve you._

She did not speak of Laurent. Truly, it was none of her business.

“Don’t confront your brother,” she said instead, and took the glass out of Damen’s hands before it could burst in his grip. He relinquished his hold immediately and their fingers did not touch. “In fact, I would recommend taking some time off until we have established a plan of action.”

It was easy, now, stepping out of the range of his warmth. He would leave the apartment colder, and emptier, but it would still contain the one thing she valued most.

Other opportunities would arise. Regrets were acceptable. Nothing she had done, neither in her own name nor in his had shaken her self-respect.    

“Are you going to keep the snake?” Damen asked on his way out the door. “Laurent. Uhm, the _snake_ snake. Whatever its name is.”

And Jokaste almost smiled and it was almost honest.

“I think I might.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They fought. :/ Next up: An overdue conversation and some backstory. 
> 
> I know the bit about Snaurent (aka Berta) is pure crack, but it's far easier to write wordy conversation when people have something to do other than talking. And all these melodramatic characters are angsty enough. Also I, much like Jokaste, know nothing about snakes, but let's just assume Laurent does. He loves watching nature documentaries (lately with Damen, who loves watching Laurent watch nature documentaries). And Berta is a very good little snake! :>


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooooooo... A couple of things at the beginning. 
> 
> First of all, I know the wait was way too long for having claimed it was almost done when I published the last chapter, but at least it's 7.5k?
> 
> Secondly, I am at the moment also re-writing / heavily editing the beginning. It's really been bugging me how different the tone is, how lax the writing, and that neither the character arcs nor the following story are set up properly. In case you're interested, I'll keep you updated on that on my tumblr (where you can also find two new scenes set in Chapter I from Laurent's POV). 
> 
> Thirdly, I might break my rule and start actually replying to comments. I don't know. I still feel super weird about my responses counting as comments on my own fic, but at the same time, your comments make me so incredibly happy and I always re-read them at least ten times (and especially when I feel like crap), and I want to yell my appreciation at you about it? I don't know yet, but I might. 
> 
> Lastly, WARNING, this chapter is pretty heavy for the most part, so please make sure you're emotionally in a good place to read it. Laurent talks (and thinks) about his past, and this includes part of the Aimeric storyline, so please be prepared for a brief description of suicide. As ever, I don't graphically depict the sexual abuse Laurent was subjected to, but the mentions of it are more explicit in this chapter, as well as that of a great deal of emotional abuse. There are also a few paragraphs about what is pretty much forced institutionalization. 
> 
> Proceed with caution!

Damen was lifting weights. He had done little else since he had come home alone. There wasn’t anything else to do anyways; as she had proposed, he had cancelled work for the rest of the day, leaving Jokaste to figure it out if there were any problems with it.

At some point, he would have to face Jokaste again, and decide how to feel about the very unexpected revelation of how far she had been willing to go to keep him safe.

At another, hopefully later point, he would have to face Kastor.

What he wanted, more than anything, was to see Laurent, but Laurent had lied to him.

So he was lifting weights until his muscles went from straining to wobbling, until even he was unable to keep going with the same exercise. He started the next one, giving his arms some rest. He would return to them later.

It was ironic, he realized somewhere into the second circle of working his thighs, that Laurent had spent so much time with him expecting to be betrayed and now Damen was the one who could barely get over his shock enough to be angry.

He focused on his shoulders, now.

He had thought they were happy. Damen had been. Everything he could have possibly asked for had been in his grasp.

His shoulders were shaking, so he dropped the weights for now.

He should bake, probably. Maybe that would help. He went over the list of ingredients. He went over Laurent’s hidden smile as Damen had insisted on feeding him pie in bed. Maybe he shouldn’t bake.

Damen had just made up his mind to get out of the apartment for a while – on a long, long run, maybe – when his cell phone rang.

He had half a mind to throw it against the wall rather than deal with whatever demanded his attention now that he had none to spare. But he was still the head of a publishing firm, and when a crisis arose, he had a job to do. Even now that it was slowly being taken from him by his own family.

He was in no hurry to get to it, though.

The caller ID read ‘Laurent’.

Damen stared at it for the duration of several playthroughs of his ringtone. His heart, barely bothered by the excessive work-out, beat so hard inside his chest it actually ached.

He picked up.

“Yes?” he asked, almost proud to sound not quite as devastated as he was.

“I spoke harshly, before,” Laurent said, in an odd, toneless voice. “I was not clear.”

Damen did not interrupt.

“You may not want anything more to do with me, and it is no less than I deserve for my deception, let alone how poorly I have handled telling you about it. But I promise you this, with all that I am: neither my uncle nor your brother will get away with it. You did not deserve to get dragged into any of it, and you will not suffer any more for it. I have a plan. Actually, I have several.”

Damen’s heart, preoccupied as it had been with the discrepancy between his perceived relationship with Laurent and what Laurent had revealed their relationship to be, grew heavy.

“Laurent,” he said, and it wasn’t quite an interruption of what Laurent was saying, but Laurent treated it as such. He hastened his words, as if expecting Damen to hang up before he had said his piece. “Jokaste is willing to help. Obviously. I could probably do it without her assistance, but it helps tremendously.”

“Can you-,“ began Damen, aching, and Laurent said, “I will keep you informed of the proceedings, as much as you wish to be. If you prefer it, Jokaste can speak to you instead of me.”

“You’re joking, right?” Damen said quietly and finally, Laurent seemed to listen.

After a beat, he amended, “I understand why you would think so, but I assure you, I am not. I may have lost your respect, but I was wrong for telling you you did not have mine.  There is nothing left for me to lie about. Nothing that pertains to you, in any case.”

“But you are lying.”

Damen hung up.

* * *

Laurent had not expected forgiveness. It had not been the objective for his call. He had prepared himself thoroughly for further and utterly justified rejection. He had even known Damen might not accept his attempts at saving him from the mess Laurent had gotten him involved in.

He had lost Damen’s trust and quite likely his affection. He had steeled himself for the evidence of this loss.

To hear it spoken with conviction was still far harder than he would have guessed.

_‘You are lying.’_

He needed to meet up with Jokaste again. It might be better if Damianos did not know every aspect of the traps Laurent was laying out around his brother, but Damen definitely needed to be stopped from acting rashly. He needed to be calmed. It would be just like him, to storm up to Kastor and demand the truth. With that terrible hurt in his eyes. That terrible betrayal.

But Laurent had betrayed him first.

A knock on his door startled Laurent out of the utter paralysis he had fallen into since Damen had hung up.

Damen’s knock. More insistent than usual. He so rarely knocked.

Perhaps he was angry. Perhaps he would hurt Laurent. Perhaps Laurent had been smart all along. Perhaps Laurent had been poison enough to make his good, kind-hearted neighbor snap at last.

Laurent dismissed these thoughts even as he opened the door. He knew who this man was, and it was none of these things.

Laurent had considered that Damen might wish to have this conversation in person. He had done his best to make himself look presentable, should this confrontation occur.

His eyes were the only thing he had not been able to bring to a standard that would forbid the thought that Laurent might be trying to make himself look like someone worth sympathy. He knew they were red from the hours of sleep he had not had since Damen had completed the picture for him, redder still from the hours he had spent doing his utmost not to cry.

There was nothing to be done about it now.  

Damen did not look angry, but his chest was heaving, and his brows were furrowed. He smelled strongly of the clean, healthy sweat of exercise. Laurent made himself take note of this only as an observation. It would take longer to stop wanting, now that he knew he could.

Laurent said nothing as Damen stood looking at him. He neither moved aside to allow Damen into his apartment nor did Damen try to push past him. It was time for a snide comment, perhaps, but he couldn’t seem to summon the will to cause Damen any more grief than he already had.

 _Oh_ , thought Laurent suddenly, _I’m in love_.

He almost laughed. All these things he had hardly believed himself capable of, and once more, they had been ruined by what had ruined him.  

How strange this was. How inevitable.

Damen narrowed his eyes further.

“Well then,” said Laurent at last. “Are you going to speak?”

And Damen did.

“How can you not know a fight is not a break-up?” he said.

And Laurent said, “What?”

And Damen said, “Of course you care about me.”

And Laurent said absolutely nothing and Damen said, “Why would you pretend otherwise? I understand everything but that.”

And all the conversations Laurent was prepared for were nowhere near this one.

If he stepped back, it was mostly to gain the time to figure out what to reply, but having Damen in his apartment again was a different kind of distraction. He looked like he belonged there more than Laurent did.

“When did you decide I was innocent in this?” continued Damen, and sat down on the couch. Not leaning back, not comfortably, but he sat down. Laurent did not join him.

 _He’s saying we can salvage this_ , he suddenly thought, and his knees almost gave out.

“The morning after-… when you slept on the floor.”

Damen nodded gravely, then said with complete conviction, “You cared about me before that. You trusted me before that.”

Laurent was not entirely sure he could keep standing in front of Damen like this, but it’s what he did: stand upright and frozen, unable to understand Damen’s mind, Damen’s heart, Damen’s reasoning, because, “What does it matter? I have been using you.”

And Damen went on unerringly, “We made love before that.”

They should have had this conversation at the table. Laurent’s breaths came so shallow it seemed hardly any oxygen reached his blood stream at all.

“Why are you-…”

And Damen reached out and took Laurent’s hands and the creases stayed on his forehead, but his eyes were steady and warm and entirely different from what Laurent had expected.

“Laurent, I am yours. Entirely. Whatever you need from me, you have it. You have known that, before.”

His hands were warm, too. Slightly sweaty, but not with dishonesty.

“Damen-…”

“I don’t understand a thing about what is going on between you and your uncle, but it is not what this relationship is built on. It never has been. I don’t know why you’re pretending it has been.”

Laurent felt like he needed to sit down, so he did. His legs were crumbling, his heart a loud and impossible thing. He sank to the floor before Damen, gracelessly, holding onto Damen’s hands.

“If I tell you,” he found himself saying, and sucked in a sharp breath to follow it, “If I tell you, I need you to not be looking at me. Please, Damen. It’s-… I won’t be able to speak if you are looking at me.”

It was true. He was a heap on the floor before Damen, and not even for dramatic purposes.

“Can I keep holding your hands?” asked Damen softly, and ran his thumb over the rapid pulse of Laurent’s wrist.

“Do you still want to?” said Laurent, helplessly.  

And Damen looked at him like he’d said something incredibly stupid and bent down to kiss him. And Laurent could have cried, but all he did was kiss him back, more desperately than the situation called for, more desperately than the little gesture of reassurance Damen had intended it to be. Not desperately enough considering once he was done talking Damen might never feel comfortable touching him again.

Laurent’s hands pulled at him, greedily, and Damen slid off the couch to the floor next to him.

It was Damen who gentled the kiss, because Laurent was incapable of stopping. Damen who pressed his lips to Laurent’s forehead and held him until Laurent had calmed his breathing. Damen who gently made Laurent sit down more comfortably, and then arranged them both so that their backs were pressed against each other. Damen who held out his hand for Laurent to grasp again, which he did.

Damen, still here and willing to listen, after all the ways Laurent had pushed him away. 

Laurent closed his eyes.

“My uncle,” Laurent began, and then could not continue.

 _My uncle sexually abused me between the age of thirteen and fifteen._ The words were clear in his mind. He had practiced them, for days and months and years. Had practiced even harder not to follow them with, _and I liked it, because I am rotten and wrong and sicker even than he is._

 _My uncle sexually abused me_ , he tried to say and could not force the words past his shame, but he owed Damen the truth and he did need to speak, so he began with a more neutral sentence.

“When my parents died, they left my brother and me a sizable fortune. As Auguste also died, I am now the sole heir. But I was too young when it happened.”

_My uncle sexually abused me._

“I cannot inherit until I turn twenty-one, which is what will happen in less than a month. Until then, as my only living relative, my uncle manages my estates for me.”

 _My uncle sexually abused me_ , he tried to say and could not.

“I did not understand, for the longest time, that he has no intention on relinquishing that hold.”

If Laurent did not say it now, he would not. The time was now. The opportunity was now. Damen was facing away from him and Laurent owed him an explanation for how he had been treating him and Laurent _could not speak_.  

 _My uncle sexually abused me,_ he thought _, and I don’t want you to know such evil exists_.

If Damen knew, it would change him. Perhaps he would treat Laurent the same, after some time. Certainly, he would not think worse of Laurent. But he would be changed.

There was no universe in which Laurent wanted him to be. 

 _It is_ my _shame_ , Laurent thought. _He does not need to know._

He skipped ahead in the narrative.   

“I did not even understand when my uncle brought a boy to live with us. He was elven at the time, and sweet and pliant and beautiful. My uncle should not be allowed near boys that age.”

Damen went still behind him, muscles tense so suddenly Laurent knew he had grasped this much.

“I knew this,” he made himself say and knew this was as close to an acknowledgement as he could bring himself. He also knew Damen would not understand it as such.

He breathed in deeply and focused on the warm body he was leaning against, at the hand Damen had not let go of.

“Nonetheless, I still did not understand my uncle’s intention to compromise me, even as their relationship progressed beyond foster care. Neither kept this hidden from me.”

He had gone over this with himself often enough for the words to remain words and for himself to remain calm in putting memories into language.

He almost smiled at how tense Damen’s shoulders had become. At how gentle he kept his grip of Laurent’s hand nonetheless.

 _This is the simple part of the story_ , he thought, _you beautiful fool_.  

“Then the boy killed himself,” he continued, the words as simple as the action had been in the end. “It happened on my watch, after months of playing us against each other. I was the one who found him.”

An immaculate young face lying in a puddle of his own blood. Empty at last, at peace in a way Laurent had almost begrudged him. Devoid of his haughtiness, his superiority, his conviction he was better than Laurent.

Devoid of the illusion that Laurent’s uncle cared about him, which Laurent had taken away.

“My uncle was out of town, having left us to tear each other to pieces. If you believe the way I spoke to you earlier today was cruel, I can assure you, it was nothing compared to how I treated my uncle’s boy. I knew his vulnerabilities and I exploited them. They were not hard to find. And he was stubborn and all too convinced my uncle truly did love him. It took many tears and much arrogance for him to finally understood I was telling the truth when I said he would be worthless to my uncle once he had reached a certain age.”

More worthless than Laurent, even. The words had come too easy, because they were not different from what he had realized about himself. He had told the boy that he would be replaced just as easily, and still be soiled forever. That no one had loved him and that from here on, no one ever would.

He still did not know how to be sorry for telling the truth. He was sorry for still at times resenting that boy, who hadn’t even had the decency to die in the bed he had been kept in. Had not left a letter Laurent could have saved as evidence.

He’d simply slit his wrists. Young and pretty and tragic and dead.

A victim, and yet years later, Laurent still could not say whether he hated him or himself more.

The apartment was silent, and Laurent realized he had not spoken in a while.

“I knew what was to follow,” he said softly, “when I found him dead. I knew I was to blame as much as my uncle was, and that unlike me, my uncle had expected this to happen. He had covered his bases, whereas I had barely even begun to understand the game he was playing. There was no physical evidence of his part in the boy’s death, and he always has been a most convincing actor.”

If anything, Laurent had been lucky to never have been framed as a murderer.

“I had to do as much damage control as I could, and I could only do so by outwardly appearing… _damaged_. I asked for psychological treatment in a facility of my choice before my uncle had the chance to decide where they would put me. As it was a shabby state institution, he did not deem a pay-off necessary, assuming medication-happy psychiatrists and my supposedly weakened mental state would suffice for me to be buried in there.”

There was no joy in these memories. Laurent had remained clear-minded enough to wonder how inhuman he had become not to genuinely break down. Instead, he had thrived in his own continued survival.

“It was my uncle’s first miscalculation. I could convince the staff I was fit to return to the world after barely more than three months there, with a minimum of therapy to follow. Moreover, I could persuade them it would do me good to live away from my uncle.”

He breathed out. Leaned his head back against Damen’s neck and closed his eyes, just for a moment. He was exhausted. Damen was still there.

“I got out,” he said, half unconsciously. “His last boy was dead. He brought Nicaise into his household.”

And now, Damen noticeably twitched and Laurent knew he needed to finish his narration.

He opened his eyes again, made himself defy gravity and pain and the years of fighting alone that wearing him down.

 _I wish I had known you then,_ he thought. _You would have hated me. There was nothing there worth caring about. Perhaps I would have hated you, too, for being so irredeemably_ good _._

“I had no intention of getting to know this new boy,” he said, voice dreamlike in his exhaustion. “I finished what was left of my high school education at a boarding school, then immediately moved on to get my law degree. It did not matter to me much what I was studying. The goal was to find a stable, high-paying job as fast as possible, so that even if my uncle was successful in keeping my inheritance from me, I would have enough to never have to speak to him again.”

_Nicaise was with him all that time and I did not care._

“Becoming a lawyer seemed sensible. I had already shown I could eviscerate a person with nothing but words. I had a half-baked notion of being able to build a case against my uncle, even. Though I confess, at the time I mostly wanted to build a life that did not include him.”

_But I was surviving._

“My uncle, of course, disliked me becoming outwardly stable. He convinced my psychiatrist – whom I still had to visit regularly – that complete separation from my family would do me more harm than good. I’m sure at this point either bribery or blackmail was already well underway. I had not trusted them with the truth before, and now I was glad for it.”

_I survived._

“My uncle and Nicaise moved near the university campus and I was informed in the most caring of tones I could either agree to weekly dinners or the fees would stop getting paid. As I’ve told you before, my family’s wealth excluded me from scholarships, so I had no choice but to comply.”

_I survived, but I never knew how to live. I tried to fix myself, but it was a sham._

“I started taking calls somewhere around then. Setting up the hotline was a failsafe as much as it was important to me personally; I could collect a small amount of money into a private account my uncle had no access to.”

_I did the best I could._

“I tried, of course, to remain indifferent towards my uncle’s new boy. I had done enough damage to the last one, and caring would only become a weakness I could not afford.”

Laurent sank further against Damen, who was now carrying most of his weight. His eyes were falling closed again. It was not quite comfortable on the floor, but Laurent was so tired. He felt like the story might never come to an end.

Not a good one, certainly.

“But I liked Nicaise, as much as I did not wish to. He was smarter than the others. Sharper. He got me out of dinner by becoming absolutely unbearable. We are now made to spend time together _away_ from my uncle.”

Perhaps it didn’t need to be a good ending. Perhaps hopeful would suffice. It would not be either unless Laurent continued fighting with everything he had. When what he had now was too precious to lose.

Life had accumulated around him, and so had love.  

The rest of the tale – what could be said of it – was simple. Laurent kept his eyes closed telling it, focusing entirely on the strange resonance of his voice inside the warm body behind him. Imagined himself sinking into Damen, dissolving into this solid, strong man who would never truly understand what could break a human being.  

“Ultimately, all I’ve done was give him more ammunition against me. I did not have anything of importance left to lose, before. I wanted to help Nicaise now, so I changed my focus in law school. I moved to a place further away from where they live, so that it actually is a change of scenery for Nicaise. I would like to believe my uncle does not know about my adoption plans, but he usually is a few steps ahead of me. And then I met you.”

He squeezed Damen’s hand once, almost unnoticeably even for himself. He was so tired.

“And you’re right. I did trust you. Far earlier than I had any rational reason to.”

Damen was breathing deeply, but evenly. Laurent’s body rose and fell gently with every inhale and exhale. Perhaps he did smile, a little.

“I don’t seem to be very rational at all, when it comes to you.”

* * *

Damen kept sitting on the floor for a long time after Laurent had fallen asleep. Not thinking. Not really. There was no thinking about what Laurent had just told him. They were not horrors one could _comprehend_.

He did not know what to do now, in a quite practical sense. The fact was that Laurent was asleep, likely overcome at last by the powerful combination of a night without sleep followed by several intense confrontations.

He had been carrying this alone all his life.

He had told Damen.

And Damen did not want to disturb his desperately earned sleep, but they could not stay on the floor. Laurent could not be comfortable, half sitting up, Damen continuously if accidentally jostling time and time again with his own restlessness.

In what was likely his greatest physical achievement, Damen at last managed to not only extract himself from behind Laurent without waking him further than a light stirring, but also to lift him onto the couch to lay out properly.

Laurent was far heavier when he was lax with sleep. His face looked terribly young.

He was terribly young, Damen realized. Not even twenty-one.

As quietly as he could, Damen walked into the kitchen, found two glasses and filled them with water. His own, he downed immediately. He wished any of Jokaste’s scotch remained in his system, but he always had been quick to metabolize alcohol and Laurent certainly did not own any.

Besides, he owed Laurent his vigilance. He had been entrusted with far greater vulnerability than he knew how to bear, and now he had to keep it safe. Keep Laurent safe.

Having filled his own glass again, he walked back into Laurent’s living room and sat back down on the floor to begin his watch.

* * *   

It was hours later when Laurent blinked awake. Late enough in the day for the sun to be setting, but most likely still not enough time for Laurent to have properly recuperated.

He had appeared to sleep dreamlessly. Damen had wondered at that. He had never experienced Laurent showing any sign of dreaming for as long as they had shared a bed. Damen himself had never had any trouble with nightmares himself, but in light of what he had learned today, it seemed miraculous that the time Laurent spent unconscious, he spent undisturbed. Damen wondered how long it had taken him to get there.

As Laurent sat up, Damen reached for the water glass, the action a poorly disguised attempt at giving Laurent some time to pull up whatever defenses he needed at the moment.

But when Laurent accepted the glass, his eyes looked out calmly from above the rim. They were less reddened now. His hair stuck up a little at the side he had lain on.

Damen smiled and then caught himself.

Absurdly, it now appeared as if Laurent was giving Damen some time. When nothing more happened to Damen’s expression other than the crease of his forehead that probably betrayed he did not know how to react to what Laurent had said, before, Laurent rolled his eyes.   

“Oh stop looking so horrified, this is not even-…” Laurent started, then stopped. He shook his head lightly, the slightest smile in the corner of his mouth.  

“I don’t know what to say,” Damen spoke at last.

Laurent handed the glass back to him, empty, and watched him put it onto the side table next to his own.  

“I don’t require a reaction,” he said finally, quietly.   

“This should never have happened to you.”

Laurent was silent. The smile was gone.

Damen wondered if he could chance taking his hand again. Perhaps he should not have let go of it.

“I understand if you would rather not be touched right now,” Damen began, slowly, and Laurent interrupted him before he could finish the sentiment.

“I do,” he said, obviously to his own surprise. He laid a hand on Damen’s chest. “I do.”

He slid off the couch to kneel close to Damen. His hand was steady, but his eyes flitted between Damen’s eyes and his mouth as if asking a question he was not sure he wanted answered.

_Can you want me still?_

_Can you care for me still?_

The answer was a clear and desperate _yes_.

* * *

Once more, it all came down to the fact that they could not stay on the floor.

Damen had meant to kiss Laurent gently, a reassurance that whatever else they would face together, Laurent could stop believing Damen would abandon him at the first sight of trouble. It was not quite what happened.

He had underestimated how helpless he felt. Utterly impotent at what Laurent had been facing alone all this time. How close he had come to losing Laurent to a self-destructive act meant to ruin their relationship.

Even now, Laurent was clearly waiting for Damen to run away. They could not stay on the floor.

He deserved to be laid out on a soft bed, treated to every ounce of pleasure Damen was capable of giving.

Honestly, Damen found himself still so shaken he would have been more than fine with simply holding Laurent all night, but whatever attempts he made at gentling their kiss were determinedly thwarted.

It was not quite aggression, but it could not be clearer that now more than ever, Laurent needed to be in charge. It was also notable that he, unlike Damen, who could not help it, was not actually aroused at the moment.

Damen was still debating whether he should try to breach that particular topic when Laurent abruptly pulled away from him and stood up. His eyes were calculating, but not cold.

“Get up on the couch,” he said, and after a beat, Damen complied.  

“Don’t touch me,” Laurent said.

Damen ran out of breath when Laurent sank to his knees.

“Laurent,” he said, as Laurent pulled at his sweatpants.

“Laurent, stop,” he said more insistently and actually went against what Laurent had said to push him away slightly, on his shoulder, when Laurent bent forward.

“Don’t tell me you don’t want this,” Laurent hissed, and shrugged Damen’s hand off.  

Damen took to long to form an honest answer.

“This is not,” said Laurent, and his eyes were steel, “an apology. I am not doing this to make up for my actions, nor as a physical extension of begging for forgiveness. I’m doing this because I want to.” He was looking at Damen with such a defiant jawline it seemed as though he was waiting for Damen to make fun of him. “Because I have been wanting to.”

Damen fought a very brief and very vicious battle with himself.

“I don’t think you’re in the right mindset to consent,” he said at last, and Laurent froze.

He blinked rapidly, for a few moments.

He sat back on his heels, swallowing down harsh breaths.

He did nothing but this for a long time.  

“I’m not rejecting you,” Damen finally said, and he was not sure if those were the right words at the moment. He wanted to pull Laurent up and into his arms, but Laurent had told him not to touch. “Believe me, if you actually want this-… If you want to do this at some other time, we’ll do it. Whichever way you want to.”

“Alright,” said Laurent at last, his voice rough, “not tonight.” His eyes shifted away from Damen as he got up. He made no move to touch Damen now and didn’t speak any further.

Absolutely everything Damen knew about him indicated he needed space to think, but the last thing Damen wanted was for either one of them to go to bed alone tonight.

 _He thought we were broken up,_ Damen brought back to the forefront of his mind, _because he trusted me, but not himself._

“Do you mind if I use your shower?”

Laurent visibly gathered himself. “Yes, do take a shower. You reek.”

Damen very likely did. He had pushed himself hard exercising earlier. “You like it.”

It did not quite earn him a smile, but Laurent did give him a small, considering look before he said, quite unexpectedly, “I do.”

Damen gathered him close for a moment, to kiss the top of his head. In his arms, Laurent went boneless.

“Or we could take a bath together,” Damen suggested softly, hopefully conveying this was not a come-on. “I could wash your hair.”

Laurent liked that. The first time Damen had done it, he had almost melted. Damen had not needed to know all Laurent had revealed of himself today to understand no one had done this for him in a very long time.

“Yes,” Laurent said, voice quiet at last. “Yes, that’s what I want.”

* * *

After having spent a good half hour simply leaning against Damen in the bathtub, his heart rate had slowed.

Damen had spent a long time on Laurent’s hair, and Laurent knew in the gratifying pressing of Damen’s hardness against him that it was not solely for Laurent’s benefit. Sweetly, for once Damen had actually seemed embarrassed by his body’s reaction to Laurent.

Laurent might have considered wiggling a little for no other reason than to tease him about it, but ultimately had found he simply wanted to stay here, in the warm water, with Damen’s arms around him and no obligation to do anything at all.

As Laurent did not like it when his skin wrinkled, they left the bathtub about less than half an hour after entering it, but he knew it would not pose an end to their intimacy and it did not.

They toweled each other dry. Laurent was glad to have his own towels, as the scratch of Damen’s might have been an overstimulation at the moment. As it was, the softness was soothing on his skin, the gentle pressure Damen applied mildly arousing.

He had not been able to get hard before.

Now, he had quieted his mind enough to mostly focus on how beautiful Damen looked in the low lights of the bathroom. There were pearls of water still on his shoulders waiting to be kissed away, and a light in his eyes that made it difficult to breathe.

Damen smiled at him, and Laurent’s lips found his as naturally as anything. Both their towels fell onto the bathroom floor, forgotten.  

Nakedness against wonderful nakedness, Damen picked Laurent up and carried him to his bed. Laurent’s tiny, forbidding bed.

“I think you were right that first time,” Laurent said, and licked at a small rivulet of clean water from Damen’s wet neck. “I think we can both fit.”

He let himself be covered by Damen, feel some of that earnest weight, trade easy kisses and touches without agenda. His sheets were too scratchy against his skin, which was spoiled by being surrounded by Damen’s so often.

It was time to replace everything about his own bed maybe, if Laurent was to keep finding himself naked on it. The bed had served its purpose. It had been Laurent’s alone.

But he was no longer alone.

Abruptly, he pushed Damen back and carefully maneuvered them so that he could be on top without either one of them falling off. Damen propped himself up against the wall, his arms encircling Laurent’s waist. They were so warm. 

Laurent’s heartbeat was still barely more than slightly elevated, his cock still an easily ignored show of desire. They could have done anything. Even just slept.

“Damen,” Laurent said, and, with a small smile, slid back.

He kept his eyes on Damen as he brought himself close enough to the end of the bed that his purpose was clear. He did shift until he was on his knees between Damen’s spread legs, but for now remained on the mattress.

“I do want this.”

For a second, Damen did not believe him. Was debating stopping him. Did not know how to once more gently turn something down that he wanted so much. Sweetly unsure whether Laurent’s words could be believed.

 _‘I always want you. It doesn’t mean I’m entitled to you,’_ Damen had said a long time ago, and it had shaken Laurent so deeply he had not been able to truly mistrust him since.  

 _‘I don’t think you’re in the right mindset to consent_ ,’ he had said earlier. He had probably been right.  

And perhaps Laurent was not fully certain now either, but he knew he never would be until he tried. And his words were not a lie. He had summoned his uncle between them so much today he should have either been shaking with revulsion or hating himself for his current state of arousal.

And yet he could almost trust himself enough to know his desire was as unconnected to the past as it was ever going to be.

“I have been thinking doing this with you,” Laurent whispered, “for a long time before today.” It felt like a confession. Perhaps it was one. He waited for shame, but it did not come with the flush suffusing his face, his entire upper body.

Damen’s mouth had fallen slightly open, and Laurent leaned forward again to kiss it. He almost got distracted with it. Damen certainly had no objections to kissing. He was very, very adept at kissing.

“Let me,” Laurent said, breaking away again at last. “Not as an apology for my behaviour; not as a show of gratitude. If you require either, I’ll be sure to bake you a half dozen pies tomorrow.”

He was serious about this as well, a small part of his brain already planning which groceries he would require. 

“I simply,” he whispered into Damen’s ear, “ _want_ to put my mouth on you.”

Damen gave a weak, helpless sound and turned to kiss Laurent again. A different kiss than what they had been sharing all day. The dizzying kind that was as much affirmation for Damen as it was for Laurent that those words were not a lie.

“Sit back properly,” Laurent instructed, parting from his lover. “And keep your hands on the sheets next to you.”

Without another word, Damen complied.

Laurent began in the simplest way, which was not with his mouth at all, but with his hands. One of them solidly on Damen’s thigh, the other simply holding Damen’s cock in a loose grip. It would be easier to kneel on the floor later, but for now, he stayed on the end of the mattress.

He had thought, the many times he had considered it, that he might want to do this as quickly as possible, but now that he was about to start, he made no motion to hurry Damen along with his hand beforehand. It wasn’t necessary, truly. Damen was as hard as if Laurent had been working him over for hours.

Involuntarily, Laurent found the smallest of smiles on his own face at how utterly ruined Damen looked from nothing more than the knowledge of what was to come to pass. His stamina had improved, after the many times they had lain together. But Laurent still cherished how easily he could be brought to the edge if that was Laurent’s intention.

The smile was still on his lips when he put them on Damen, a simple kiss below the swollen, weeping head.

Underneath his hand, Damen’s thigh twitched. A look upwards rewarded Laurent with the view of Damen in perfect erotic tension. Every muscle strained and defined. All of them employed to keep himself from moving, as Laurent had requested; from taking what Laurent was giving freely. He was looking at Laurent as if he had never felt pleasure like this, and could barely believe it was Laurent who was causing it.

Laurent grew heavy with arousal from this look alone.

 _I love you,_ he thought, fiercely and helplessly at once. _And I want you. And it’s okay to enjoy this._

When he breathed against a prominent vein, he found his own breath shaky, his lips trembling. He mouthed at the length, one drawn out, not quite innocent kiss. Damen briefly pressed his eyes closed when Laurent stopped just underneath the head again, tasting precome. He kept his hands in a tight grip on the sheets.

Laurent let his tongue dance across the slit once and Damen groaned, throwing his head back. Laurent wrapped his mouth around the head and breathed deeply through his nose. His tongue found a sensitive spot to tease as he braced himself for negative associations.

He sank down while hollowing out his cheeks.

“Laurent…,” whimpered Damen, and the only reason Laurent pulled back was that this had been a warning as much as it had been awe.

He sat back on his heels, panting, and waited for shame.

Damen was close, but so was Laurent. Hopelessly aroused by something he had sworn never to do again, an act he had hated himself for enjoying almost more than anything else. Submissive. _Degrading._

But the shame remained vague, far behind the haze of pleasure, as though it was something he was conjuring up rather than a natural reaction.

Taking another deep breath, Laurent shifted on his knees, considered going to the floor and then dismissed the plan simply because the angle would be wrong, then lowered his mouth to suck on the head of Damen’s cock with more fervour.

Damen cursed. Laurent began building up a rhythm of sinking down and coming back to the tip.

It was easy, despite the challenge his sheer size posed.

And yet, the familiarity Laurent had been afraid of was hardly there. He knew what to do, but it was mere technical knowledge. Rooted in experience though it may be, it was not coupled to reliving memories.

Instead, it was a different kind of familiarity. The weight of a cock in his mouth was changed to something familiar not because he had done this before, but because it was _Damen’s_.

He loved Damen’s cock. He knew the shape of him so well from holding him in his hands, his length from when he moved between Laurent’s legs, his girth from when he was inside Laurent. He knew the taste of his skin, and it was headier where Laurent was at the moment, but this was far from a hardship.

“You can touch me,” he suddenly realized and pulled off to say so.

Damen was looking at him, eyes heavy and dark, mouth slack with pleasure.  

“You can touch me,” Laurent said, and heard the wonder in his voice, how hoarse he already was even though he had not yet taken Damen deep. He heard himself wanting and the sudden ache of it shivered all through his body.

He reached out to guide Damen’s hand and immediately felt it slide into his hair. _Another familiar gesture_ , he thought helplessly, _his large, warm palm supporting the back of my head_ , the surprisingly dexterous fingers tangling through the soft strands at the nape of his neck.

 _I know who you are_ , he thought again, and it felt louder than a proclamation of love.  

His own cock throbbed as he took Damen’s back into his mouth and licked around the head. Until he could feel the strain of barely maintained control in Damen’s thigh, made helpless by how his hand contracted in Laurent’s hair with every trick of tongue Laurent knew, the wet slide in and out as Laurent sunk down again.

When Damen came, he did not hold Laurent down to make him swallow, but Laurent did anyway.

He swallowed, and pulled off, and leaned up over Damen, and took himself in hand, and came suddenly and wonderfully on Damen's abdomen.   

* * *

They lay together, in the aftermath. Laurent’s head was pillowed on Damen’s chest. Their bodies were intertwined on the too-small bed. Tissues had sufficed for wiping Damen off, and though Laurent’s throat felt slightly dry, he had no intention of getting up anytime soon.

He was not tired, at the moment. His body was spent, yet his mind was alert. He had conquered back another piece of himself, one he had thought forever lost. And perhaps shame would come, but he would hold on to Damen instead, with his earnest touch and his care for everything he had learned of Laurent, which had not driven him away.

“You’re scared of your birthday,” Damen said suddenly, and Laurent looked up at him. “You think something is going to happen before then.”

“I think,” Laurent answered carefully, because Damen was right, “that you were supposed to destabilize me. For all my uncle knows, his game is working.”

Damen’s arm held him tighter for a moment, then his hand began absent-mindedly stroking Laurent’s side.  

“He’s underestimating you,” he said.

“Both of us,” Laurent corrected. “He had no idea what he did when he dragged you into this.”

Laurent shifted onto his elbow and regarded Damen seriously. Damen’s heartbeat was loud, his face cloudy. Charmingly, it appeared at this moment, he was the one thinking too much.

 _My uncle sexually abused me between the age of thirteen and fifteen,_ Laurent thought, with finality _, and I was very young and lonely and desperate and lost, and I did not know what love was._

“I will not let them hurt you,” Laurent promised them both, and kissed his lover again.   

_It was not my fault._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI, that last part is what set me back THREE WEEKS to update. Laurent decided now of all times was the time to give a blowjob, and just wanted to rush in headfirst (hemhem), and obviously, the chapter being what it is, this gave me major dubious consent issues. I had to figure out a way to make certain he was actually reclaiming bodily autonomy and NOT putting himself into a situation where he could not properly consent. It also needed to be okay for Damen to let him. I hope I have accomplished this. 
> 
> (In case you want to know, I think it's a bit different from what was going on with Laurent when this happened in canon. The Laurent I am writing has not only has working on recovering on his own for a long time, but also had at this point been in a regularly intimate relationship with Damen for a while.) 
> 
> Structurally speaking, this should probably have been two chapters, but I felt everyone involved deserved to have the whole thing immediately; Damen and Laurent after of all the angst beforehand, and you guys after the long wait between chapters. :D
> 
> That said, I have no idea when I will next be able to update. I have the next two chapters outlined (and hello plot), but I'm leaving for Crete next week, where I'll be on an (extremely cool) excavation for four weeks. As this means ten to thirteen hours of work in the scorching sun every weekday (and forced socializing all of the time), finding the time and/or energy to write might be tough. Speaking from experience, I'm much more creative when I'm away from home, but who knows; the heat might fry either my brain or my laptop. I'm-... cautiously optimistic?


End file.
